The Hunt Swiftly Podcast
The Hunt Swiftly Podcast discusses everything to gear to camo patterns and everything in between
The Hunt Swiftly Podcast
Ep. 6 Killing a Bear After Three Years of Hard Work
There's something profoundly satisfying about achieving a goal that's taken years of dedication, countless failed attempts, and unwavering persistence. This episode captures that powerful moment as Quintin finally harvests his first black bear after a three-year journey filled with disappointments, hard work, and relentless pursuit.
Through pouring rain and challenging conditions, Quintin shares the emotional roller coaster of his week-long hunt that culminated in a heart-pounding encounter with a mature chocolate black bear. The drama unfolds as the bear initially spooks, only to charge back after a perfectly executed predator call, leading to a clean, ethical harvest that ended his years-long quest.
What makes this story so compelling isn't just the successful hunt, but the complete journey that follows – from the meticulous field dressing in the rain, to the grueling 100-pound pack-out over 2.5 miles, to the careful decisions about honoring the animal through proper taxidermy and full utilization of the meat. Quintin's narrative brings listeners into every aspect of the experience, from the pre-hunt gear preparations to the reverence he feels toward this significant achievement.
The episode also delves into philosophical discussions about conservation ethics, the management of bear populations, and the disconnect many people have with hunting predators. Quintin's passion for bears as magnificent animals worthy of respect shines through as he explains the importance of ethical predator management and his plans to share the meat with friends and family who might not understand hunting.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter who's felt the sweet relief of accomplishment after years of effort, or someone curious about the depth of emotion and respect involved in hunting, this episode offers an authentic window into what makes hunting such a profound, challenging, and ultimately rewarding pursuit. Subscribe now and join us for more genuine conversations about hunting, conservation, and the gear that makes it all possible.
now, there we go, but this time I actually knew her yeah, this is. This is a monumental moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're the one that started the recording technically um, no, but I need to figure out what I'm running for tech, like what I'm gonna carry my arrows. I'm thinking marsupial hip clip, fair, um that, I don't know if I want to run the hip quiver or I want to run a backpack, because when I did northwest mountain challenge last year I ran a backpack. It worked well, but then again I only lost one arrow throughout the entire course sure I.
Speaker 2:When I shot tag two years ago, I ran with so much backpack I did not do it.
Speaker 1:I have this little tack like range bag that works very well. I just I mean, the nice thing is not like I'm like having a hand out, so it's all like with my wrist wrap. I just bring an extra wrist wrap, I bring water and I bring my arrows and like a sun hoodie and I'm good yeah, yeah, yeah I I think I have been influenced by that farm.
Speaker 2:I like the look.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just have heard good things about the marsupial. It's marsupial, yeah, with FHF they're basically the same thing with a different logo, mm-hmm, except the only thing that I really like about the marsupial is that you can do the water bladder connected to your vinyl harness and then that straps onto your hip clip. It's like a full system.
Speaker 2:It's pretty sick Okay that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:That's pretty fair. So, instead of having the wrap like the normal, you basically just get this backpack and it straps. Oh, I think I've seen that. Yeah, you can have that all set up and then you can put the hip quiver on that is a perfect kind of tax up because I need water. Same. I think it's just a compound too Nice. So that's it, dude.
Speaker 2:I, you know, maybe initial set in day mode, yeah, and then the hip or something like that, or the EDC. I can just bring the EDC and just run with that.
Speaker 1:I just yeah, I'm probably gonna run. I want something. I don't want a frame, fair. I sweat so badly when adding heat that I just like know that a frame would not do well for me at that time. That's fair. I'm not carrying heavy stuff. I'm carrying an owl inset, an extra release, water snacks, something lightweight, yeah, something that holds air as well.
Speaker 2:We'll see Sure.
Speaker 1:There's time we got a month, and then I'm just curious how long I'm going to be, because it's the weekend of Aftermath.
Speaker 2:It'll be tough.
Speaker 1:Did I tell you I'm signing up for a hundred mile why I'm signing up? I think for so. If me and my buddy Max, who I ran my first, so I ran my first ever marathon last summer yep, ran that minus without stomach issues, I would have gotten like a 345. With stomach issues I had 415, okay. And then this year I'm running bighorn with him, which I'm a little worried about him because he lives in LA. Yeah, I sent him the wilderness athlete altitude stuff. I'm like you need to take this, yeah, or you're gonna die this is gonna be a tough time yeah, but he's coming up like a week before.
Speaker 1:Okay, so he'll get used to the 4,000, which I've got, yeah, but so I'm running it with him and we made a commitment that if we get under eight hours we're doing Salt Flat 100. Oh, omar's? No, that's, that was a different one. Salt Flat 100 is through the Great Salt Desert in Utah. Yeah, that's where he did, that was where his was. That's the one with Salt Flat. That's a different race. Yeah, the Salt Flat 100 is a pretty popular one. Yeah, the one he did I thought was not very popular, like there's not a lot of people, I don't know. But basically, if we get under eight hours, we have to start building logistics like pacers, crew members, drop bags, rent a van.
Speaker 2:There's a YouTuber that I meet my husband and wife. They are travel YouTubers, but recently Nate has gotten into doing like marathons and ultras the Leadville 100. Oh, leadville's crazy. Yeah, truett's doing that one, yeah, and it's like that was fucking insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, soflat 100 is apparently going to be one of the mentally hard, physically easy marathons. 100 fucking miles? Well, yeah, it's 100 miles, but that's neither here nor there. But because it's only 5,000 feet of elevation gain for the entire 100 miles, fair, that's like nothing. That's like running flat for most of it. That looks like a few hills Almost all at once. Yeah, flat for most of it. It looks like a few hills Almost all at once. My 32-miler is going to have 10,000 feet of elevation and 14,000 jumps. I'm more worried about the loss than I am about the gain. My hamstrings are going to be hooked after it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it, yes, they fucking are I've been running like so much? Because recently, like I went up highlight when it was closed, yeah, and I was like I did, yes, and I was like I was running 7, 30s up and 545s down Damn, that's very good. Yeah, I felt good that day. And then yesterday I ran 5.5, felt nothing, and so at 11, I was heading over to go hang out with my homie, yeah, and I was like I'm not running or I'm not driving. So I ran. I don't know you know what clip kept playing in my head the entire time. It's the Well, it's groundhog day for Dave Goggins 3 am. Look to your right no one. Look to your left no one. No, why, oh boy? But I had a Dave Goggins moment when I was packing up my bear too. I was like yelling at myself.
Speaker 2:I think were you alone I have a whole story, okay, yeah we'll.
Speaker 1:We will get into the bear, we'll get into the bear. We're doing an old podcast bullshit. I've discovered. I finally, after three years of consistent training, have found that I enjoy finding my breaking point and pushing into it and past it. You have to no, I know, but it's something so like. For the past three years I felt like I've been on a plateau of it when it's like I'll find my breaking point and I'll push kind of, but it'll be a hard push, but I finally have started. When I was running those 7.30s up it's not a terrible incline but it's an incline and I just dug deep and started feeling really good. So my last one was like a 7.10. Like 20 seconds faster at mile 3, three and a half of that climb up. So I like I mentally am feeling like I'm fortified, full, like way more recently and I've been like craving that sense of pain. Yes, I'm craving it.
Speaker 1:What's a good little television? I think it's my psychosom, hey, whatever it takes. I was like Do you know the movie Chase the Mavericks? Of course I watched that the other night because I was a little homesick. I know so many people in that movie, the real-life versions and the actors, because it's my. I know, like so many people in that movie, like the real-life versions and like the actors, because it's my hometown and there's like a quote at the end of the movie. It's like I have a feeling I'm not going to be around for a long time so I want to live my life at the risk of taking that drop. When he's talking about Maverick Yep, and like I was just repeating that quote in my head with my bear the entire time. Dude, that movie makes me stop.
Speaker 2:Just from a purely cinematic standpoint, that is a fantastic fucking movie.
Speaker 1:It's fun, Dude. You know what I watched today. Do I hype myself up 300.?
Speaker 2:You want to know something that may shock you. What I've never seen 300. What? What I've never seen 300? What I've never seen 300. Dude, this is sparked up like I know the the main moments. I know the fucking spartan kick into the fucking pit and all right, you do.
Speaker 1:You know, like my favorite line from that is like eat breakfast well tonight, because tonight we died in hell, dude.
Speaker 2:No, I know all the line. It's just, it's the art style, it's just not me, dude it's a work.
Speaker 1:It's one of those movies where it's not a good movie but it's entertainment. It is pure entertainment. So I feel like the master of its guys. Yeah, if you look at that movie and as a way to motivate yourself to do something, it's fucking perfect Because it's not really deep. There's not different plot lines. It's one thing. They're ripped, they're in speedos, they're killing random monsters. It's sick.
Speaker 2:The closest I've ever gotten to watching 300 is a screen movie. They do they spoof it, yeah, and put like one of the. So there's a moment and I was like I resonate with this that it's like they have, you know, like all the dudes are fucking ripped and all that shit. They have the one fat guy that like jogs out and they look at him like what the fuck are you doing here? He's like I'm gonna go fight. He's like we need six pack and he's like what the fuck are you doing here? He's like I want to go fight. He's like, well, you need a six-pack. And he fucking takes out an airbrush Fucking airbrush. It's like hell. Yeah, gerard Butler is the shit. Though I love Gerard Butler, what's that fucking movie where he plays an LA County Sheriff's Deputy? Den of Thieves? Den of Thieves is sick. That movie is fucking great. That's like Heat, but like made in the 21st century.
Speaker 1:I watched Heat on the plane from back from Colorado. That is one of the most iconic. That's such a good movie. Yeah, such a good movie, dude. And they have like Al Pacino, de Niro, no, is Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's not Christian Bale, but I want to call him Christian Bale, the white guy, guillermo del Toro yeah, guillermo del Toro, I, when me, me and Kylo are in the backcountry, we watch Sicario.
Speaker 1:Yes, dude, sicario, is which one? First one? Okay, the good one. We watched the second one back at the house, but the first one, oh god, at the house.
Speaker 2:But the first one oh, come on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Dude, so good. And like the plot twist at the end where he's in the Colombian cartel. Mm-hmm, oh my God it is so dope the.
Speaker 2:Uh, I will say it's the second one where the border crossing scene, yeah, Is one of my favorite scenes in movie history, but it also which border crossing scene? So they're bringing the dude across the border with like four. That's in the first one.
Speaker 1:That's the first one. The first one. Yeah, because Emily wants it. Yeah, it's the first one. That's a sick scene.
Speaker 2:That's one of my favorite scenes of all time. Mexico was hard time.
Speaker 1:Dude, I was crossing in Tijuana. That is where I saw my first dead body. This guy's head was exploded right next to the other people. He was in a speed bump and I'm like this little 17-year-old white kid like get me out of here, because I was living on the beach in Santa Rosalita for a few weeks and that was beautiful, that was chill, it was very calm, it was safe. Dude, tijuana, tj is crazy. Tj is crazy, but Juarez.
Speaker 2:That's the fucking most dangerous city in North America, yeah.
Speaker 1:But Sicario. And then we watched Goodfellas. I yeah, no, but Sicario, I was like. And then we watched Goodfellas. I'm like dude, Sicario makes Goodfellas look like a bunch of pussies. Yeah, the cartel is way more than the mob.
Speaker 2:Well, it's because the mob has rules.
Speaker 1:The cartel doesn't? Yeah Well, um, there's an honor code. I will say we were watching honor code. I will say we were right. I will forever love Goodfellas, because that's. We were watching the car right before we went out on the hike to Killa nice and I was like I just need to listen to this one line. It's like as long as, as far back as I can remember, I won't be a gangster. No, that line I'm like such a good part Can't be hidden. That's a beautiful movie. It's just never Dude.
Speaker 1:Have you read into actual Thermopylae?
Speaker 2:Not more than I learned in college.
Speaker 1:I read this book called Gates of Fire. I forget the author. It is a very thick, big book, sure, but it talks about Thermopylae and it was very significant. But it's really intricate and they're talking about how some people believe, philosophically, that the world would be a better place if the Greeks had lost versus Pers. Persians, like more acceptance of medicine, more acceptance of different religion. It would, um, it would have democracy was already taking roots in some parts of persia. Like it wasn't, like greece was the last stronghold of democracy. It In modern medicine. It would be way more advanced.
Speaker 1:The Dark Ages wouldn't have happened. The Renaissance would have happened much earlier. The Roman Empire wouldn't have happened, which means that a lot more independent states would have been created throughout Europe. It's really interesting. It's fascinating. It shows the different viewpoints. Thermopylae is a crazy moment in history of pure brilliant military strategy, but there's some people that believe that the Persians would have been better for the world as a whole. Interesting, it's cool. It connects it back to the sense of individualism based around Christianity and how it wouldn't have happened. So that means the tensions around World War I wouldn't have happened, meaning World War II wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2:Interesting Huh.
Speaker 1:It's really cool. It's a great book. It's a fascinating read. It takes a while, dude huh, I've been. I've been really in a like a big art and philosophy. I like finished meditations after three years. The other night.
Speaker 1:damn meditations is amazing, yeah, but meditations. And then I like do that. Meditations is amazing, yeah, but meditations. And then I got really into art so I ordered two pieces of art for my house. I love art, love it. I love art too. So my favorite painting of all time is the Scream. I've seen it twice in real life. The actual Scream, beautiful, it's like very provoking. But this piece that I found and bought is Bonaparte Beholds the Sphinx. The representation and what it's supposed to represent is incredible, just like how the sand is supposed to represent time. The Sphinx is supposed to represent history and Bonaparte's rejecting history, with this modern army in the background. I'm going to have to look that up. Represent history and Bonaparte's rejecting history, with this modern army in the background. It's very thoughtful. I'm going to have to look that up. Yeah, it's really cool. It's like I looked at it for like an hour and a half, like just, and I think it's like Jean-Pierre Gascon or something like that.
Speaker 2:It's, it's very, it's a cool piece of art. Mulberry tree bingo is my favorite of all time because I can mentally put myself there. Okay, nice big tree, shady spot on the ground, french countryside or dutch countryside. He's dutch, yeah, he's not. Yeah, but he's Dutch, yeah, he's Dutch, but it's just. You know, you go like I can, just, I can visualize myself sitting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I like the screen just because of what, like the traveling and like I'm putting it above my toilet, Jesus Christ, it's the perfect spot for it. You say so, Dude, the screen.
Speaker 2:It's the face you make. Anyways, what's up guys? Welcome back to the Hunt Stuffed Podcast. We appreciate you being here Today. 20 minutes yeah, we're only 20 minutes in before we get the intro. Today we're going to be talking about Quentin's successful bear hunt, Finally. Yeah, we've talked about a couple very unsuccessful bear hunts, but finally something put a bear on the ground. It was Quentin. It is a nice-ass bear. It's on our Instagram.
Speaker 1:It's decent. I'm happy. I'm very proud of it. It's a good bear. It took me three years to kill it.
Speaker 2:It is a good bear I have history with that bear too, do you?
Speaker 1:I do Remember that story. I told you about the missing one last year. Same bear, Fuck yeah, I'm 99% sure same bear, because it's the same spot, same exact pattern, coming from the same place at the same time, with the same weather conditions, same color, just a little bit bigger.
Speaker 2:Nice, Very nice History. Oh yeah, that's fucking awesome. Yeah, for anyone that hasn't seen the pictures on our Instagram, go check them out. I might even if you're watching on YouTube, I'll pop some photos up here in the edit.
Speaker 1:Also, this is a great segue into Thousand Follower Giveaway. We're posting the clip to be reposted here shortly. Yep, by the time this comes out on Tuesday, that clip should be up. Remember, tag us repost it, comment and tag your friends in the comments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and yeah, you'll hear about all the rules and stuff and I'll be with them. The description of that. But yeah, it's pretty sick. If you're following us on Instagram, you might get the opportunity to win a bunch of sick-ass shit, very cool stuff. And then, on top of that, if you go to our website, huntswithfreepodcastcom, and you buy some merch and use the podcast, you'll get 10% off everything, plus there's already free shipping. So why not? Alright? So, bear Hunt, let's just go over it. I'm just going to let you talk, alright.
Speaker 1:Start off. So, as I've been mentioning before, I had a week set aside in between school schedules where I was going to go bear hunting and started off on that Monday with rain and Tuesday rain, wednesday rain, thursday rain, friday rain, saturday kind of clear, a little rain, sunday rain, all rain. So on Monday I got out to the spot, sat on a glass and out for about six, seven hours In my first spot, didn't see a single thing except two mule deer. I was like, okay, and it's in like this like big kind of like downhill basin, so and it's a this big downhill basin and it's a dirt road in there. So the rain had started, it had been shitty all day and I was like, okay, I'm going to sleep here tonight and I'll move in the morning.
Speaker 1:I wake up at 5 am that day and just to downpour rain and this spot has this notorious like runoff road. So I knew I had to like move. So I didn't. I knew that was a possibility. So I didn't sleep in my tent that night. I put down, I took down the tent and I slept in my truck because I'm short enough where I can fit in the back seat comfortably. Well, speed up your experience.
Speaker 1:So I had woken up and I immediately hopped into the driver's seat and booked it out of there just in time because it was getting like I was leaving the parking area and I was trying to take a right to go up the road and my truck was like sliding and it and it like slid out of the parking area into the road. It was so much, much yeah, and like I have decent tires, I have four wheel drive on I was so sad, doesn't matter. So I get out of there and I go to this other parking lot and I fall asleep again for another three hours and I'm like, oh, that sucked, like my spot is just completely rained out. There's a level of rain, which I'll talk about later, that bears will be out. This was one of those where they're going to be taking cover.
Speaker 1:It was sideways, windy. I hadn't seen a bear or anything worth staying for the entire time. I was like, okay, I'm moving spots. I scouted this spot. I hadn't seen a bear or anything worth staying for the entire time. So I was like, okay, I'm going to look at spots. I scouted this spot. I hadn't seen a bear. I haven't seen a bear there, just had heard of bears, I will say waking up saw a bunch of elk, some bulls, so that's on the Instagram as well, some nice young.
Speaker 2:They were good bulls. Well, they will be good bulls.
Speaker 1:Well, they will be good bulls One of them had already had grown in his brow ties and was starting his main feeds. I'm like that's either a young bull or a good bull. So after that I switched to. I went to this one spot near bozeman kind of like drove over there. I stopped at my house, drove over there, hiked up a few miles, kind of glassed into the valley below it's like on this like ridge, and follow the ridge and glass down the entire way. And I did that, got up like four or five miles and I was like I'm not seeing anything and I'm like so because it's still pouring rain. So I'm like all covered up with like my bag has the initial scent like rain cover, I have full rain gear, pants, everything on, and I'm just so and I'm like okay, I can either stay out here in the rain or I go home for two days, because it was supposed to clear up on friday and I had stuff I had to do because I didn't make the move. Yep, so I went home that night at like 9 pm, slept there, helped one roommate move all the stuff out, cleaned the house, got ready, and then one roommate moved in.
Speaker 1:So that was kind of like my two days and then on that Friday, my friend Kylie. She took off work and she was going to come with me. So that night we went to the first, not the the first spot, but this one spot that had the access had just opened up, like most of montana. Most the access was closed until the sixth. It was the 16th, so we went up there. We hunted the left. So if you think about it, there's like this big parking area, you can go to the right where you can get to two trails, and you go to the left where you get to one trail. That day we left and got there around three saw there's a few cars, nothing crazy.
Speaker 1:Um, we went up to the left and we hiked and we got through all like we did about five, six miles up there saw two things a bear sign. But what's weird is that this trail it runs through so there's private land, so you can't hunt the private land, but the private land looks like the best bear country. Of course it always is, yeah, and we were like walking by and like there's like bear sign everywhere on this like private land. But we already enough. We had another like mile to get through public. So we got to public all the way up and we sit in this underneath the tarp for an hour and a half, took a nap and then we got to the glassing point, last for a few hours down into the other side of the valley where the two trails connect.
Speaker 1:We look're like okay, not really seeing anything. Go back to the truck, got the peaks cooking, dried out some stuff, ate dinner and went to bed Because with her I wanted to do more of a car spike camp set, so we slept in the tent that night, woke up the next day Is that where the fire pit was from? Yeah, so we were very close to the truck Just because it was just so much easier.
Speaker 1:And she didn't have the equipment to go full backpacking. It just wouldn't have worked out logistically. And there was no reason to because we hadn't seen anything, because I'm on day three of this Day eight of reason to because we hadn't seen anything, because I'm at day three of this day eight of the year and I haven't seen it, except for when I was running and right next to yellowstone, yep.
Speaker 2:So I didn't have a lot of information.
Speaker 1:So the next day we wake up, eat breakfast, take our time and we look in the parking lot there's 20 cars. And I'm like, because it was the first nice day, and I'm like, oh okay, we have to move spots. So we go drive up the valley and we go to the spot like 20 miles, 15 and we go down this logging road all the way as far as we possibly can set up the tent and we go on this hike. This pissed me off. Actually. There was like one other car and we they got us there after us and we're getting our stuff ready and there's these little people biking and we're like they pull into the one, like one road, and there's like a second road to the left and we think they're going up the right road because we were playing the left. They just go without talking to us, without asking, just go, just go straight up. I'm like what the fuck? Take me Anyway, public land man, I know Public land people, rich people who don't, yeah, so we go up to the right road.
Speaker 1:We just basically hunt this road the entire way up. We get to this massive glassing point, sit down oh cool, mountain Goose. And on our drive in I forgot to add. Add in there was like a bull moose again. Yummy, bull moose. It was pretty cool. I saw the video. Yeah, yeah. So we get up, we sit up there for a few hours glassing in the trees, take a nap, eat food, and it starts dumping on us and we're like, okay, we're gonna move down. So we move down half a mile down this old logging road and we get into the trees, glass on the other side and just basically systematically glass our way back, and the entire time we're talking right. So the day the day after that hunt on the in the morning, the new roommate was supposed to officially move in and I was like it'd be kind of I don't know, I'd feel kind of weird if no one was home, moving into a house. So I wanted to be like there just for the morning because I knew I bear hungry.
Speaker 2:I didn't have to be out in the morning, so we decided we've been out here for a few days.
Speaker 1:Like you know, it's not gonna hurt if we go home, I just help him move in and we leave in the morning, sure? So basically we get back, we've dumped all the camp stuff and we basically are like, okay, we're gonna go light and fast, the weather's supposed to break around three, we're gonna get there at one so we can see how many people are there and kind of play by ear. So we go, and we went back to the spot where he camped up the first night because I had gotten a text from a buddy saying oh, there's grizzlies, there's grizzlies. They sent me a photo and I was like that is a black bear, a hundred percent a black bear. They sent me a photo. They thought it was grizzly. I think it's a black bear. I'm not dissing on them, I just think it was a black bear. There, a barber. There was nothing to me that said Grizzly with that photo. So I was like Other than it was color-faced.
Speaker 2:It was born.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, there's no big hump, it's on a tree.
Speaker 2:The ears don't look like Grizzly. The snout don't look like Grizzly. There's not the hump to look like Grizzly.
Speaker 1:But it was a nice bear. So I was like dude, I'm going back up there and like dude, I'm going back up there and I'm. I was kind of a dick by going back up based off of his photo he sent, but I was like dude, it's my spot. I showed him that spot, so I'm going up to that spot. I feel like. I had the right to. What's your opinion on that?
Speaker 2:If it's your, alright. This is going to be a tangent, but if it is a spot that you found, yes.
Speaker 1:Well, I was told about it by an old timer. I've hunted it for multiple years, sure.
Speaker 2:So if you, if you have a spot that is given to you, like I, my elk spot was given to me. Well, I found it and then it was confirmed to me that there were very good elk in there, because my buddy killed a couple elk in there yeah, Then that is your spot. If you bring some no, this is just again, this is my opinion If you bring someone into your spot, it is still your spot. Yes, that is right. If you are actively hunting there, it is not their right to hunt that spot without you.
Speaker 2:Yes, now, what's an even bigger crime? Like, okay, so I take my buddy hunting for the first time, it's all he knows. He goes to that spot again. Okay, that's fine, I'm like, okay with that. The cardinal sin is if you go, take your buddy, show him the rope, show him the spot, you see animals, and then he takes someone with him without asking for permission first. Now, I understand it's public land, I understand I'm probably not the only person that hunts that spot 100%. But if you teach someone the ropes and then they go and take someone else to your spot, that is a no-no, that is something you don't do, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I mean from what I was explaining. He said that his buddy, the one he went with, was the one who found it a quote-unquote and I wasn't coming at him and his buddy like me, just in general like. But I'm saying the situation, the I 100 agree with that. But the reason why I'm not mad about it is because he said his buddy found out on onyx, asked if it was a good spot, but he he like said, oh, I've been up there, let's go like. Well, I'm marking it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't do it because it's a recording a lot of but oh well, it's a minute 31, I'll just go back, yeah.
Speaker 1:But um, he said that they had found it independently and wanted to go up there and I was like, okay, I understand that, but I'm still going. I don't care, I'm still going. I feel like I have the right because I've hunted it for years. Yep, it is your spot, it is my spot. That I confirmed was a good spot. I my spot. That I confirmed was a good spot. I had to let the person in vigil know that that's a spot that I would be upset if he went to without me. But anyway, based off that information, I went back up there with Kylie. I was like we'll just go Because the weather's supposed to break at three.
Speaker 1:We get there, there's one car or two cars and I'm like those don't look like hunters, they're like supers. Is it a super woo? So I was like, okay, it's empty, which makes sense. It's a Sunday evening, it's raining really hard. So we get there around 1.45. And I'm like, okay, we, we'll sit, we sit and watch good fellas, like I said earlier in the truck. And I'm like, at 3 pm we're going out. Color high, long, cool. We get out, it's 3 pm, there's a little tiny break. So we start our hike and then both groups of hikers pass us and they're wrecked, coming down, coming down. I was like, oh, how far you get up. They're like, oh, not that far. We just like it wasn't. We didn't go very far because of the rain and I was like, oh, okay, in this spot. So this spot's like a runs along this like big kind of creek, river thing, sure, and it's like a decently flat trail. There's a little incline, little decline, and at the there's like a few like meadows along the trail. And this one meadow, at the very end, before you go right or left to like climb or go to and like deeper in, is where I shot at that bear last. Okay, so I was like, okay, I don't really feel like climbing this. I'm demoralized as hell. Like I'm like I haven't seen a bear.
Speaker 1:It's day five, I haven't seen a bear. I'm feeling demoralized as hell. I've this is year three, I'm barely seeing bears. Like I'm feeling like down in the dumps. But I'm like, okay, we're gonna go the two and a half miles in, get to this meadow. And we get to this meadow and I'm like, wait, we'll just set up here. So we set up the tarp, like just set it up after we get through the hike. I'm like okay. And I'm like, okay, I must change my jacket.
Speaker 1:As I'm digging in changing my jacket, kylie's looking out across the meadow. She's bang, bang, bang. And I turn around and I'm like oh shit, that's a black bear, like I thought, because this is a high population Disney area, so I was like that could either be a good thing or a bad thing, yep, and I'm like oh shit, and I throw on my orange and I pull out my like I unclip my gun. It's staring at us and it doesn't know what we are. The rain, the smell, the smell is nothing because the rain is like dumping. And I like pull the rifle out, I put it on the ground, rack one and I drop in the probe and it runs off and I was like oh fuck, like I just blew it and I was like, but I was in my kill mode and this is where I know the mental reps that I've done in the red zone paid off because of my kind of predator call. She hands me a predator call, I blow it. It looks like I have them on the line just from the back trees, straight back to us like full tilt, full sprint.
Speaker 1:It was the craziest moment in my entire life. This thing is sprinting and it gets to this rock pile and I'm like I don't know what the yardage is because I can't with the rain, but I know that's under 200 yards and it's poke his head at us and at this point, after I blow the protocol, see him running through the trees back at us. I've gone on the gun. I'm sitting on the gun and he pokes his head out and gives me this perfect look right into his chest and his head. I shoot, the gun bounces up and I'm like I either missed him completely or, at that point, perfectly in like the median of the collarbone, into his chest, into his lungs, into his heart, and dropped him.
Speaker 1:I'm like which way did he run? And kyle's like he didn't run. I'm like what he's like? He didn't run it or he either ran straight back, because there's this thicket by him. I was like he either ran straight back or he's dead right there on the swamp eight years.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, fuck, I don't know if I just killed a bear or missed a bear. Yeah, same spot, same situation, very fast, like I had a split second to throw on my orange, rack my gun and put on the ground like not range or not anything. And before I blew that, predicle which protocols they fucking work. Yeah, oh yeah, they work with theirs. They're like, if I ever need a bear to come back out and look, but because that was like one of the craziest, like seeing it run back from the trees after getting spooked at like movement, because I'm my guess was he didn't smell us, he kind of you know, bears don't have great vision. Yep, so my guess is that he saw something move when I dropped in the prone and didn't know what it was, so he bolted it. And then when I blew the prayer call, he's like, oh, that must have been dying something in a food. So that's why I came back and checked this out. Yeah, so I like after this, after I shoot him, I like I'm like, okay, we either. I'm gonna give it five minutes so we sit there. And then it's like it's not, it's not. Did I kill him? Is he dead? Right there? Is he thicket? Is he still alive? Did I miss him? Where did I hit him? Everything's running through.
Speaker 1:I knew I made like. I knew my rifles died. I practiced all year. I knew it was under 200 yards. It's not, it's a 7 prc, so it shoots flat. It should not have had an issue. If anything, it should have hit high. But I aimed perfect.
Speaker 1:Like it gave me no broadside shot besides the first interaction and I knew that shot is like the way I had the confidence of my rifle and the way I have confidence in my shooting ability and I was in a covered area so I didn't have rain in my scope or anything I knew that it should be dead. Yeah, just like devastation in a perfect spot in a flat shooting bullet in a high count. There was like 99% of me thinking it's dead, but the 1% of me that's just like I missed a bear last year at this kind of distance. Did I do enough? This is like running through my head and I'm like, okay, let's go and we cross the 80 yards across the meadow it is purely just across this meadow and like we get to this, like thicket of alders right in front of the trees and I look over and I'm like I just he's right there and I'm like, oh my god, chocolate.
Speaker 1:And I'm just like in shock and Kyle's like dude, you just killed a bear. If I can interject really quickly.
Speaker 2:If you follow Quentin on Instagram, which you should. There's a video of that moment.
Speaker 1:There is a video like an exact video of, like my face.
Speaker 2:I've never seen him that like just oh fuck, that just happened dude.
Speaker 1:Hey, I had to post that video because I've had that moment too before. It was like, oh, I killed my first elk. Like not to like take away from it, like, oh, I just killed my first elk. That's like I was excited but I knew I'd done it. This was one of those like three years of hard work coming and paying off in one moment, just like the emotion just rushed in, I'm like the adrenaline dropped, I'm just like shaking and I'm just like yes and she's like you, just go there I'm, I'm like just killed a bear and I'm like I have to check who's actually dead, because we need to move because like I said, this grist mmhmm.
Speaker 1:Gunshots are dinner rolls and it was like 4.45. I have the exact time stamp because I tagged it before I touched it, because that's what you're supposed to do. Mmhmm, I wanted to follow this Bible book in every possible way. I did not want any reason I would lose this bear, any reason at all. So I e-tag it, validate the tag it's 444. I then am like take my rifle, hand me the 10 mil, because I have Kylie holding the 10 mil bear spray. I just have the rifle. Sure, I was like I'm okay with dying, I don't want her to die while I'm here, kind of thing. I take the 10 mil and a stick and I go walk up and I poke at the bear. And I poke it and it just and I'm like that's a fucking death groan. But I know when I hit chest and cavity. So it wasn wasn't gonna be like the like, like you know, like you see the videos of the death ground, like if you hit a broadside it's like it's just some like gas release, yeah, and I'm like that's a dead bear.
Speaker 2:I just killed a bear and I had this moment of like that's not a grizzly bear, right, that's not a grizzly bear, and she's like no, you fucking idiot.
Speaker 1:And like I'm like, look that thing is the like. That thing is almost black, so it was a chocolate bear. And I'm like that's not a grizzly bear, right. I'm just like so much adrenaline, so much, like it happened so fast and I knew it wasn't a grizzly bear. But the area I mean the size, there's no hump. I knew if it would be, but I had so much adrenaline ripping through me. This had been such a hard-fought goal. I put so many days, so many hours in my head. I really hope I didn't fuck up. I know I didn't fuck up, but I just need someone to tell me I didn't fuck up, kind of thing. And I'm just like that's not a grizzly bear, right. She looks at me like you're the one who just gave your buddy shit because he thought he saw a grizzly bear it's a black bear.
Speaker 1:You know what a black bear, grizzly bear is. You're not stupid and you look at bears for the listeners, because I've seen both pictures.
Speaker 2:Was it the bear that your friend said? You know that it's completely different.
Speaker 1:it was that bear. You've seen the photo, right? Yeah, yeah, no, that's way more simple. This one was like dark chocolate. This is just for the listeners to verify.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The photo I got was a big cinnamon. The one I shot was a chocolate with a blonde face. Yeah, that's a good looking bear man. It really is. I like it. I didn't think I wanted a chocolate and then I shot that one and I'm like the blonde face with the gray line I'll get into it.
Speaker 2:So Bears on the Ground. What's next?
Speaker 1:I tag it before anything Like I had played this moment out of my head so many times, so that's why I knew instinctively to throw my orange to start.
Speaker 2:Yep, didn't want to be like that kid in Indiana that shot all the trees in. Gordon did put it on Instagram. That was orange, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:Well, I try, with bears specifically and everything.
Speaker 1:I try to be as legal and total gorgeous as you should be, but it was one of those moments where it's like I had two seconds to do it and instinctively I threw on the orange. I didn't throw on the vinyl harness because I knew I couldn't get a range with the rain and got on the gun. So if you look at the videos, I don't have vinyl harness on, but I have my orange on because that's why, and so basically I'm at this bear and I poke it and I'm like dude, I'm like we have to gut it and Kyrie's like do you want photos and stuff?
Speaker 1:I'm like we're on the clock, we need to move.
Speaker 1:So I'm like what I need you to do is take my rifle, go run and grab my kill kit. I'm going to adjust the bear. We can take photos on the rock, which that on my Instagram, my actual Instagram is the exact rock that he was standing on. So I put him on the rock, which that on my instagram, my actual instagram is the exact rock that he was standing on. So I put him on the exact rock with the paw out, kind of like a move. You could see I had my hand on his head because I was about to flip and I also want to.
Speaker 1:I immediately, as she was checking, I will check for herself, because I was like I better not show herself. I didn't have anything with it when it ran away. So I look. I'm like that's poor nice that for people who don't know, shooting a board eliminates so many extra problems. Like you're not worried about a sow with cubs, you're not worried about looking for lactation, you're not dealing with like there's a million other things that come with sows. I knew I'd show a boar and I was very happy I did because it saved. Even if it was a sow I wouldn't have been happy because I knew there wasn't cubs, because the cubs would have ran with more, they would have been hidden away. But, like I said, I had history with this exact spot with the exact kind of bear, and there was nothing with the last one. So at that point I checked for us. I was poor, my like, stress levels just decreased. Don't have to deal with like checking lactation, looking around for cubs, calling the game warden so they can come look for the cubs. It was bull.
Speaker 1:So I had watched this video from cliff gray on how to do it right, so I made so I started gutting yeah, so with deer and elk I usually just cut the trachea at the throat and then pull no, I don't do that. I didn't do that. I went up from the asshole up to the sternum and I start like cutting away. And we got it out. Kylie was a stub in that because I was like literally like arm deep, grabbing the trachea from behind. I'm like we have to cut the diaphragm. Well, she cuts the diaphragm, we get the guts out and I'm like, okay, we're gonna just leave the act the like bladder and the like. You know the like the colon in because we need to move. I carry the guts 400 yards away into the trees. I come back. She had collected like all the but she had collected all the knives and she'd kind of cleaned up everything and I'm like like, okay, we're gonna're going to move this. And at this point I still assume I should run along going because I'm like I just can't bear it.
Speaker 1:This is three years of hard work. I haven't seen a bear all year that's leaving a shoe. It's a decent-sized bear. I thought initially he was going to be taped out four and a half four and three quarters picked up the five. So I'm very happy that it came out five perfectly, from tip of the nose to the tip of the tail. Very happy with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, because I I knew I literally said I want to shoot a five foot bear. You can't really judge him. I knew he was like not a dinker bear. But I he was like definitely skinny and a little short. But I then she's like, okay, I'll grab the rears, you grab the fronts. I'm like, nah, I'm going Ken Haynes on this. I get on the ground, grab it over my shoulders, stand up and this is going to be it. I put it over my shoulders, blood starts dumping on my back.
Speaker 1:I shoulder this bear and I'm like dude, this thing is probably my guesstimate is about a 200-pound bear with guts. It's not huge but decent size. I thought he was going to be about four and a half years old, just kind of in the moment I thought he was a smaller bear. He had a little gray on his face, so he had the full chocolate body like dark chocolate. His face and snout were blonde, like bright blonde, and he had a little bit of gray around his eyes. It's good looking. Right, it's good looking bear. I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Um, so we then move him across to where the tarp is, which is 80 yards away. So we're about 500 yards, 480 away from the gut pile, and I'm like, okay, it's 515 now. We took a bunch more photos there because I'm like, now that we dealt with the guts that part, we have a little bit. We would know if something's coming Take a bunch more photos and then that's where that photo of the bear in front of the tarp is. So I really like that photo. It's a perspective, like not 0.5 or anything, that's just perspective. So from there we skin it, which is an entire.
Speaker 1:There's so much different than deer and elk with skinning that's just kind of those are my fucking edit points points, yeah, but there's so much different than deer and elk that, like I luckily had watched I've watched so many videos on how to properly skin out a bear for the taxidermist. I'm obsessed with bears, to be honest with you. They're cool animals. They're, they're fascinating and they're so I feel like there's so much more weight to killing them like a deer and elk, like cause they're not, like you know, deer and elk season. They're beautiful animals, they're majestic, but you can go drive around and find herds. You're not going to find a herd of black bears, yeah, so they're like solitary kind of creatures where they're just beautiful. In Montana they're significantly one of the hardest states to hunt, spawn stuff. It was like a moment of like oh my god, I did this, but anyway, we cut it up. I watched, like I said religiously on how to do it correctly for the tax nervous.
Speaker 2:What video would you recommend people go listen to watch?
Speaker 1:MeatEaters. Vanilla with John Hayeses, the tax service yep, I agree, it is the that in um cliff gray's video on gutting, where you it just I mean, it's for me like you just got it the same way. You cut it out the deer and elk, but instead of kind of throw it, you just go in there and cut the trochia. But those two, those two videos were the biggest helps. But ranella's with john hayes, yep, was the perp. So I did my opening cuts, just like the video. I messed up a little bit on the part here and because I cut a little bit too close, not like above the bicep, but we skinned it out with only poking two holes. I was talking to the FWP guys and they were like, oh, that's kind of good that you have two holes, only because one of them had to be filled with the tag so that even if you didn't make a hole, they would have made a hole. Anyway, we skinned it out. Kylie, she's a pretty vet. She is way better than me with a like scalpel. So I'm taking my skinny knife, like this brown skinny knife, and like cutting, like the big chunks, like getting that, and she's going through and doing the joints at the paws. So she did those perfectly and we kind of like we finish up, we do all four of the paws, we cut all the meat and then we get to the head and we find the joint and I'm like, look at the time, it's like okay, it's like 6.30, we need to still butcher the meat and get it in the bags and move out. I take my saw and just because I don't want to fuck up the head especially, it's like one of the most important parts, oh yeah, especially if you're going to rub it in the middle. Yeah, so my plan I'll talk about that the taxidermy process was a whole process myself too.
Speaker 1:So we get the head off, we get the hide off and then I go through and we butcher all four like fronts and backs. I take as much meat like flank. I took backstrap tenderloins. I didn't take rib meat, but we like split the hip, did all that like you would with a normal elk, and at this point we have everything laid out, the hides sprawled out, cooling, and then I deal with the carcass by moving another 200 yards away through the opposite direction. So there's a gut pile 500 yards. That way, carcass, 200 yards. That way we have a good room.
Speaker 1:We pack up all the stuff and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take the rears, I'll take the loose meat and, kylie, you could take the punch. She's like no, split the loose meat and the hot meat and, kylie, you can take the punch. She's like no, split the loose meat, loose meat. I want to feel this too. I was here, I helped. I'm the first one who saw the bear. I should have some of the suffering, you're true? Yeah, she's like I should have some of the suffering too, and I'm like what a woman Kylie's, she's like this tall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's about five foot and a hundred pounds and I'm like okay. So we load up my pack, which was probably about a hundred pounds, cause we had we did one trip. We it is grizzly country. It was like seven, 30 at night. We had an hour and a half till nine that's when it was going to get dark. We had one trip. So I took I probably, like I did the math the other day I probably bought 40 pounds of meat, 40 at 20 to 25 pounds of hide, um, and then 20 pounds of gear. Is that the math? About 100 pounds, like I'm doing the math wrong. So I rock consistently. I rock consistently with 80. And I know what 80 feels like. This was heavier than 80. So it was definitely like this is either within 90 to 100 pounds. And then we load hers up. She had a killik pack. That's a neat shelf. It was surprisingly well made. So we load her up. She probably has like 40 pounds with me and then 10, 15 pounds a year.
Speaker 1:We each use one of the my trekking poles and we hide the two and a half miles out. Fuck you and dude. It was one of the hardest packouts I've ever had, purely because it's 100 pounds. It's not flat. You're running through, like there's like two or three creek crossings, yep, I have a trekking pole and I'm just like every half mile, literally my legs just turn to gel when I pull out.
Speaker 1:All the while I literally I put the hide in the Stone Glacier what is it called the load cell bag? Okay, so I had the GoHunt game bags, which worked fantastic for the meat, and then I used the Stone Glacier bag what was it? Load cell bag? Yep, for the hide, and I put the meat on the meat shelf and I put the hide into the bag itself and the because of the weight of the head, because it had a pumpkin like this head was not a light head, so it was like sliding out. So what I, what I ended up doing is one, one hot tip that fwp really thanked me for was putting a stick in snow snow tooth data. So we had, we had the jaw open, which is good, but I basically had to move it, and then I put my initial scent like lid over the top of the head, basically covering the eyes, and I cinched down the ones next to the frame and I cinched down the ones up front and it finally got to like sit flat, nice, because it kept like for the first half mile it kept like sliding out, okay.
Speaker 1:And then I used one of the middle straps to like put it in its teeth against that wood, and that helped a lot too, until I got that like the full lock in. Yeah, but a hundred pounds, it was hard as fuck. But the pack, the initial scent, that's a highlight.
Speaker 2:Performed well, very well as advertised 100%.
Speaker 1:It was hard. 100 pounds is 100 pounds, but if I had my own stone glacier I would not have been able to drop half the meat and come back. It was comfortable for the weight. Yeah, we got it done. We got back to the truck at exactly two and a half miles with 100 pounds hour length. So we were cooking, we were moving, because I was like I'm just like thinking so in the half miles I scream at myself like you, fucking quitter, Don't, fucking quit. They don't know you, they don't know me, son. I'm like yelling out David Goggins quotes. I'm like fucking, who's gonna carry the boats? Me, motherfucker.
Speaker 2:Me.
Speaker 1:I'm like yelling this Kylie's in the back, like cringing along, like she was apparently like one more step, one more step. And I was just screaming at myself. I'm like take the motherfucking souls, baby souls, and so we get back to the truck, we dump that off and I'm like that was so hard, like I have videos that it's like that was so hard. And we get back. I just basically pull my rifle from my pack because that's the thing, like with rifle gear, all that. It was heavy. So I put the rifle in the truck, I unload everything in the lid and I put it in the truck because it was all electronic kind of stuff the headlamps, all that and I basically just leave it in the bed because it's still.
Speaker 1:It's for the reference. It's still poor this entire time. It is still pouring rain, so we're hiking out. My hair is in my face. I'm like my reindeer had wetted out midway through cutting up this bear. It's a part of the process. It shows how it's bear hunting. I love it. I fucking want to do it the rest of my life. But so we get back to the truck that we go, we drop off, we load up the meat and coolers and then we spread out the bear long ways, let it cool and then I sent swifty. I sent you that photo. We got a lot to talk about this week, fuck yeah. But overall we taped him out there five foot chocolate with bone hair, some ground space and afterwards the.
Speaker 2:This is the part that it's like, that's like the fun part.
Speaker 1:But this is like the logistical kind of nightmare bears, yeah, of predator hunting, predator hunting in general, yeah, so one I had to go to fwp it's montana fitzpah level part. Yes, yes, um, they checked in the bear. Fwp it's Montana Fishball Lone Porch, based on Montana. Yes, they checked in the bear. Make sure Tiger's the bear, they were like you left proof of sex. I'm like, yes, I'm kind of pissed because I accidentally left a baculum in there, so I dropped off the tax.
Speaker 1:I'll get into that, check it in, and at this time I'm still like this is like a four and a half year old bear and I get it checked in First. I learned how to do this entire process all that day Because this is my first time killing a bear. So I call the hotline. Give them section, region, like township, all that, not range. They're like cool, here's your pin. I go to the office, I give them my pin, I give them my ALS number and they are like okay, cool, just drive around back.
Speaker 1:The guy comes on and expects it. He's like you did a good job on this. Like you have everything you need. Everything's intact. It's done by the book. I'm like perfect, because all the while I had a nightmare, they're going to take my pair. I did something wrong. I'm like I did it, but I was like it's always in the back of your head. Did I fuck this up? Did I do something wrong? And they check it. They're like cool, they take out the premolar right side and then he's like this is a really old bear, I'm like what he's like.
Speaker 1:Look at, the teeth decay and so the front teeth are like nubs, the bottom teeth are like beat. Everything's like dude. I've like he literally wrote in the comments like overbear. He's like this is like a short stubby bear. He literally wrote in the comments like over bear. He's like this is like a short stubby bear, but based off the teeth, my guess would be like 10 or 11. And I was like really that makes it way cooler. Yeah, so according to FWP's guess, it's a very old bear. I have to wait a year till I get my tooth dated back. Okay, I was going to say they'll send me all that shit. But if it's like they, apparently it's like four.
Speaker 1:Which I'm really excited about because I thought he was like four and a half five, which is still like a mature, technically mature rare. But to find out it's older than that and it just had bad genetics. Makes it cooler. Yeah, 100%, you know what I mean. Reached his prime, yeah, and his prime just wasn't that good. Oh yeah, yeah, so I get it checked in. I get back to the house and I texted swifty. I'm like let's get taxidermist. And he's like 406 taxidermist. I'm like, okay, I call her up and at this point I looked at the price and I'm like 1500 bucks. I think I'm gonna just get a tan like 500 bucks and then euro.
Speaker 1:And I call her and she's like we're not doing tans only doing ropes and I thought about this for a long time for like like, actually like 10 minutes while I'm driving home from fwp. I'm like this has been a three-year grind. I've put in countless hours, countless days, countless minutes. Is this worth to me the 1500, I said a hundred percent. If I had killed this year one, I don't think I would sure. But this is a three-year grind process where I've put my heart and soul into looking for this. And you have history with the bear and I have history with the bear and I have history with the bear. Yeah, I think it would make sense. We'll say you do. But it's like this moment of significance where I worked so hard to achieve this goal, why would I not just do it? So I'm like, fuck, I call her back. I'm like, hey, I really want to just get her. I'll get her up. What's your deposit? She's like $500 plus. And I'm like, can you do it on a card? Yes, 30%. So I drop off the meat and leave it in the cooler. I drive to Belgrade, drop it off she. We roll up. She's working on this like big elk and I'm like, dude, that's sick, super cool, like sick, super cool, like, super cool.
Speaker 1:And like I'm talking to her, I drop off the bear. She's like telling me about this, like bear from libby that had tons of ticks. So she's like, yeah, we'll put this in the freezer for a few days. I don't think where'd you kill it? Um, you don't have to tell me, but it would help me know. If there's ticks on them, like I'll cover in this range. She's like, oh, that range doesn't really have ticks, I barely see them on those. So we'll just put them in the freezer for a few days. But I was like okay, what's your turnaround time? She's like about 18 months and I'm like checks out.
Speaker 2:She's one of, if not the most popular taxidermist in the valley.
Speaker 1:Yes, but we put and it's going to be a copper under rug and then a dark brown in front of the copper Perfect match to color. I asked her recommendations. She said if I was going to do it, I would do this Because it looks good, it highlights the colors well. So I was like perfect. She's like yeah, I'll probably have your urinal ready for you earlier, but the rug's about 18 months because she sends it to Tanner and to the Shad. But the rug's about 18 months because she sends it to tanner and so the like shad. Yeah. So I'm like sweet and she's like I. I had to ask how come you wanted to. You changed your mind. I was like you came highly recommended from a friend and after contemplation, this meant so much to me that I think it was worth it to bring it to someone who actually does a good job of it. And she's like well, I appreciate that. Tell your friend.
Speaker 2:I said thank you, yeah, thank you, yeah, she jenny is fucking sick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's very nice, but she was like showing me like how they like sew the armpits in and put in like a little synthetic hair and dye it and make it so that way it looks a little bit more full. So because it was pretty like, it was pretty like rubbed out along the armpits for sure, just because spring bears do what spring bears do they just get, they just start rubbing, get some hair done. If you were sleeping six months you'd be sitting there. So they're, they're gonna fill it in. But that, like the process of dropping off, it's expensive but for something that worked so hard for it made way more sense to me to get.
Speaker 1:And then I went back that day and we butchered the meat, cleaned it up because it had mud and dirt on it, because it was raining. We were working quick. We got a little hose, used gloves, moved off the big pieces and then basically just deboned it and actually tomorrow I'm gonna go drop it off to get completely summer sausage. Really I hold that animal in such reverence that I could do it myself, but I want it done right. I want to use it as a way to show that you can enjoy it. Jalapeno summer sausage.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic. I just don't. I hate fucking bear. It's like a really good ham, or summer sausage.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get all summer sausage. It's about 37 pounds.
Speaker 2:God damn, that's a lot of sausage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a lot of fucking sausage, that's all D-bones. I'm going to get in like two pound logs so it'll be like 15, 16 vlogs, but I'm going to bring a bunch to California Because actually I told so. I called my parents. Well, this is a funny story. And my dad's like, yes, microgeneralists, hawaii. Yeah, that's how my dad answers the phone. And I'm like hey, check your text. He's like why I'm like text. He's like why I might check your text. He's like, holy fuck, and we're at a party. And he's like, holy shit, you did that.
Speaker 1:And my and in the background I was like what do you do? My dad's like come look. And my mom's like, oh my god, and they're at this party. In my, this guy who I call my uncle, he's like a very close friend, friend like I grew up without like actual family around me, so my family friends can't, absolutely. He's like, sorry, getting upset. And apparently my dad's been getting shit from people about it all week because people don't understand yeah, 100%, because they see this furry woodland creature and I'm like hey and like if they, they're fucking cute.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest Bears are fucking adorable.
Speaker 1:They're adorable, but I understand the fallout from it From coming where I'm from. So on my actual Instagram I wrote a paragraph and I explained the need for management of these animals, for their population and for deer and elk. Kind of went through the motions and my dad texted me. He was like I was talking to my dad. I like, oh, yeah, like, has people giving me shit? He's like yeah, I've been getting shit. I'm like, hey, you know, you should tell him next time when they give you shit and say what. I'm like learn how to fucking read.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he's like I mean you also like. So you're from california and fairly recently, in the last year, California doesn't have a huge bear management. As far as I've read about, yeah, there's no black bear and they just had a lady get killed by a black bear and it's like if you don't manage the population, that's what happens. It's like grizzlies here.
Speaker 1:That is why all outdoorsmen will say that grisly is managed, Because, if for nothing else, it's to instill the fear of man, which is if they don't have a fear of man and see you as a food source. That's when issues happen and you kill bears unnecessarily, Absolutely Realistically, when you think about it just from a conservation standpoint would you rather kill bears unnecessarily?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, because I mean realistically, when you think about it, just from a conservation standpoint. Would you rather have someone shoot a bear that is working for it and pays? For the money has put their time and their effort and is going to use the meat, is going to treasure the hide, is going to tell all their friends and reminisce about this bear and value it and support the economy with taxidermy.
Speaker 2:Or do you want an FWP game warden to go put it down because it became a nuisance bear, because humans continue to expand into their native habitat where they live and they spend their lives, and because humans have pushed their way in in, it becomes then a nuisance bear, which I think is a turn.
Speaker 1:that's just humans being irresponsible and then having to have that bear euthanized a hundred percent or, even worse, having a bear that is killed by in self-defense and the person gets hurt, and so both parties. Yeah, I don't know, but, coming from california I, the reason I really want to get the summer sausage done and that much quantity is because it's an easy entry and I'm going to be doing like the whole try this yep, and see what they think. We talked about it in the last episode. Just have them try it and if they don't like it, then I'll be like, okay, cool, but if they like it I'm going to tell them that's bad and then they'll understand. Yeah, it's hard not to love sausage. It's very hard, especially jalapeno cheddar. It's very hard, it's especially jalapeno cheddar. So I'm dropping it off tomorrow. Apples yeah, daniels.
Speaker 1:So my new roommate we're today and Daniels is an accepting bear and they're not such a good. It's fair. But I will say one thing I do genuinely take pride in I can get as much meat out of something as possible, and I did with this one like I took every little scrap I could carry and I paid for it and I cashed in with a fucking heavy backpack and deep, so deboned, completely clean, defattened, the like silver skin ready for grind. Basically I got 37 pounds and it's perfectly clean. I know they can use every bit of clean, de-fattened, de-silver-skinned, ready for grind. Basically, I got them on 37 pounds and it's perfectly clean and I know they can use every bit of it. I did not leave any questionable pieces. So 37 pounds, which doesn't sound like a lot is a lot of fucking sauce yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will enjoy that for months and I'm going to bring an elk hunting with me, because summer sausage is fuck yeah. So that was my bear experience and I will say I would be okay with spending another three years looking for a bear, purely because dealing with the bear is a lot more expensive than just boiling a skull. Yes, thousand percent, I think if I killed a bear of a similar caliber, similar size, I would just get it tanned out next time. Sure, I think this one just was so monumental to me that I needed to like invest and get the rug no, I, I totally agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's. It's the same reason why I'm waiting for the bear, my other yeah, I, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:It just this was such like a this was. This has been the one part of my hunting journey that I feel. So I people are like oh yeah, sure, like, yeah, you know, like it's an expectation you go bear hunting, you should be the opposite for me really I know a lot of people think, oh, he's just being crazy, like he's not gonna actually kill a bear. Really that's, he's not going to actually kill a bear.
Speaker 2:Really that's surprising.
Speaker 1:In California. Oh, so they think that I'm just like holding this as a stunt and like it's been three years of me saying like, oh, I'm going bear hunting.
Speaker 1:They're like, oh, okay you're just going to do this Like you're not going to kill a bear actually, but this was my like. That's why, if you looked in my comment section, they're like finally yeah, true, because I've been talking, I talk about bear hunting with these people and they're like have you killed a bear? I'm like no, so it was my final like, this moment of like, reverence, respect, accomplishment, hard work genuinely paying off. Okay, years in the making of me putting in hours, miles, days, not slacking, not going for turkeys, not going for sheds, scouting for bears, looking for signs I actually I'm now going to foray into it because I'm going to be bored as fuck when I go out this weekend.
Speaker 2:Shed hunting is stupid. Drew. Be cleaned up though, yeah, but did you see how many fucking cars were there? Yeah, I don't get that. I don't understand shed hunting?
Speaker 1:I don't either. I'm going to just look for sheds because I'm going to be bored and I don't like sheds. No, for sure, for sure that I understand that's different. I that I understand that's different. I've tagged out on my big spring item, if that makes sense. So now I can go turkey hunting. I might go turkey hunting. I'm not going to like If someone invites me, if I get a text from one of my boys like hey, you want to go turkey hunting?
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say no, I will say I've had a lot of people be like did you guide me, could you come out bear hunting with me? And I'm like dude, it took me three years, why do?
Speaker 2:you think I'm $1,500?. Yeah, $1,500. That's my guide. Service fee $1,500.
Speaker 1:Pay for that road. I will say I'm very excited and I'm very excited for the meet. I'm trying to drop it off off and it should hopefully be done when I leave in July. I will say one of the highlights of gear that I was using was the Drifter for some things. But when I had everything loaded up the hose was a little short. So do you have the extension in? No, okay, because usually it's perfect length. Sure, but when I had all that meat kind of like pressed out, it got a little short. So but I will say the pressurized hose for washing my hands after that bear Dude highlight of that gear, I like used the compression and we like washed our hands so that way when I was walking back I wasn't just smelling bear. Constantly the bears are coming there dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they smell. But the Drifter when I used that dude I genuinely was like the most morale boosting thing ever really, just having like not super disgusting hands because I had the pressurized water to wash my hands. Yeah was perfect. And then I used the filtration system for the first time when, um, the other day, and it was like when I was on Tuesday, I used it on this creep and it worked so well. It's super nice.
Speaker 1:I would rate it my experience with it for the application 9 out of 10. The only reason I wouldn't do it 10 out of 10 is just because I didn't bring the extension which is on me. I will say just because I didn't bring the extension which is on me. But I will say that, drifter, if I had any other bladder I wouldn't be surprised with the amount of pressing. Kylie used my heart-side hydration. Those worked well, but she also didn't have as much stuff. But for the hand dude, that hand washing, that little bit of morale boost yeah, little quality of life like just yeah, I had a little problem with the magnet too.
Speaker 1:just don't when they got so, so that it just was a little Sure. But besides that I had full confidence in it and I was way happier I had it than if I did.
Speaker 2:So what other gear highlights can you give?
Speaker 1:So the initial scent like we talked about, very high Vectorhydration, I would say very much up there. Let's see.
Speaker 2:Oh right, the Bodhi feature of the podcast is absolutely it's everyone. Every single podcast Bodhi is on.
Speaker 1:Oh hey, highlights. My outdoor edge knife worked very well. Do you have a replaceable blade, replaceable outdoor edge? I did have a replaceable blade, or replaceable outdoor edge.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting um. I did have a question because you mentioned it. What saw? Do you have a silky?
Speaker 1:pocket. It's a silky yeah, pocket more. That thing worked for cutting wood. It was great. It was exactly what I needed for my teak stove and for cutting the hip and cutting the Because the saw motion is back is how they cut it. It worked very well with bone, because you're not pushing into the colon area, you're literally just ripping it back, and it worked fantastically on bone Perfect and the blades were very sharp still. So that's a highly recommended buy. Is the Silky Pocketboy Cool? Let's see what else. There's a few pieces of gear that really stood out the Sika Gun Gloves, the new ones, the new ones. Those are my gloves of choice. Now, I'm not a Sika guy. I've openly talked about Sika.
Speaker 1:Those gloves are the shit, the perfect amount of insulation for spring. They were warm enough where I wore those throughout all those rainstorms, completely not dying of cold. They were cool enough where on the sunny days when I was wearing a t-shirt, I would wear those still to carry around like bush, like bust and brush and stuff the. The leather is tough, it does, it dries quickly, it doesn't stink. High highly recommend the gunner gloves. I'm not a sippy guy but work great.
Speaker 1:Another sick piece I wore with my gunner vest, the ballistic vest, I will say. The magnetic clip instead of the zip probably helped me a lot with getting comfortable behind the rifle in that sort of quick situation. Um, another huge one that really worked well for me was my crispy boots, my nevadas. Those are now my main ones. I put them to the absolute limit this past week and they performed flawlessly Excellent, great enough support for where I did some heavy climbs they were fine. But when I had weight on them they still had a good amount of support and they were very comfortable, easy to layer and take off. Okay, the, I will say. Another piece of gear that performed incredibly well was this hat, the Hydra hat from Roland. Breathable, it worked well with the water, it didn't ruin it. Complaints I have from gear, honestly the atmosphere jacket it's almost too warm is that a complaint or is that a?
Speaker 1:it's kind of a complaint yeah, I just need to like find like a lighter mid layer because I was using it as an outer layer and it worked. Perfect for the mornings, perfect for, like when I was packing out it had. It was great when I was like cold to the bone, okay, but when I was packing out it was great when I was cold to the bone, but when I was hiking in I felt like it was just too much warmth, but at the same time I run really warm, so I even had a Cirque Fest from Stone Glacier on and I was still too warm. So that's not really a complaint. I will say. The atmosphere jacket though, overall performed great. That was the only piece of like insulation. Besides, like my grumman, that I've been okay.
Speaker 1:Um, the crazy creek 2.0 chair I switched up glassing pads for this trip and I went to that crazy creek game changer for me as a person who has like a pretty bad lower back, like sensitive, just from years of lifting and working out. That thing was amazing to glass off of and sit. I could sit for hours at any angle, any slope and be completely comfortable. That was a big highlight. Most of my gear performed fantastically. I didn't have a piece of gear, minus maybe my tent that I really do like, um, just from trying. But I would say that the two highlight pieces by far was the initial side and the drifter and the. The third one was, uh, um so nice, okay, um, worthwhile investment on the saw very much, so, um, weight with the pack felt pretty, but yeah, I didn't have like a ton of complaints. Minus my tent was a little like condensation as hell, true, but it's not a very nice. It's a nice tent. It's flawless though right, which is like I don't expect that out of a flawless estate.
Speaker 2:Yes and no.
Speaker 1:Yes and no. Overall I'm very impressed with all my gear. I don't think the Peaks Gators too, the Stormcastle Gators, one of the highlights as well. My rain gear from Snow Glacier. It wetted out but to be fair, the conditions were pretty brutal so I think anything besides rubber would have wetted out. I will say it did insulate very well so I was warming them, but I don't think that I would say it's a highlight of gear, but I wouldn't say it's a low light.
Speaker 1:One other actually piece that was a highlight was the initial ascent raincoat, because it's that universal size. It's the perfect size where I could put it over my rifle and my bat. Very nice. And my vestibule final arms it's the perfect size where I could put it over my rifle and my bat Nice, very nice, yeah. And my burst of beauty. Final marks the enclosed one. Good color, happy with the color, very happy, me and Swift. We went to Shields and I was having a dilemma over the forest green and the coyote brown. I'm very happy, I went with the green, okay. But um, yeah, all my gear performed great. I don't have anything I would really change besides them.
Speaker 1:That's coming, but I'm really excited to have a lighter pack. I will say one thing about the initial scent no matter the weight I had in it, it always kind of felt like 30 pounds. Nice, that's what you I mean, yeah, that's what you want. I mean I mean yes and no because I was running a light setup like, and it felt pretty heavy still okay. So like that's where, like it kind of was an issue where it's like the benefits to when I did pack out me are 100 outweighing any form of complaint I had with it.
Speaker 1:Okay, but when I was like running and gunning up timber roads with like barely anything, when it was a little too like, it felt like a lot heavier than it actually was. But when I did have a lot of weight on it it felt the same, which is really good. Yeah, so that's one thing okay. Like it's not a terrible issue. It's just like if you're looking for an ultralight pack, it's not as bad, but if you're looking for something that will carry out an entire bear in one trip with one other person, it is that fucking yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It is the perfect mix of, like, total comfort. It's not like super duper comfortable, like cushy like, but it's also not ultra light, it's.
Speaker 1:It's comfortable and relatable where you need it for everything. The times I missed my Stone Glacier pack was when I was lightweight, running around and I wanted something that didn't really feel like I was wearing anything. But when it came to the actual application I would take that a million times over a Stone Glacier Cool. There you go. When it actually mattered and it actually had weight on it, the initial scent performed much better. So yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:There you go. I think that's a real endorsement.
Speaker 1:I would say so, but what else do we have?
Speaker 2:to cover that. What else do we have to cover? That's it for this one, really. I mean, stay tuned. We've got some videos on the way, so this one will go out Tuesday 11 am, eastern or not Eastern Mountain Standard Time. And then Thursday there will be a video on our YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:It's going to be either a Tricer RP Bipod review uh, that I put on my gun, took it to the ring, shot it and just initial impressions on it, um, followed by, uh, the shooting experience with it, and then my final thoughts, um. So stay by, stand by for that. And then we have two taste tests coming up where we're putting ourselves what I fully anticipate to be an absolute hell, not during, but later. So I have sourced every freeze-dried biscuits and gravy I could find, because that tends to be a good baseline. Biscuits and gravy I could find, because that tends to be a good baseline. And then I went to Peaks Mountain House, pinnacle, wild Society, gastronome, and I think that's it, and got their most popular flavor, what everyone buys from them, and we're going to try that.
Speaker 1:Yep. And then finally down the pipe, a long overdue Drifter Hydration. We've talked about it a million times on the podcast Pull it out of the pack. We're going to be honest, but I'm telling you now we're going to be positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. Drifter definitely is a game changer. I mean, there's a lot of things that I think we've found in the last six months.
Speaker 1:Or four months. I will say, putting it through the ringer, this past bear season has. There's some, like I said, there's some cons we've talked about, but there's a lot of pros that kind of out and we'll we'll get into every little bit of discussion on that, but I have a feeling this can be yeah spend money, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, go subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:Um, we're doing a lot we're finally starting to move into more video content besides just the podcast. Yep, we are very much looking forward to expanding media operation. We've kind of started out with the podcast. We're going to move into YouTube. Like we talked about, we have a giveaway, we have a tag coming up. There's a lot of things coming down the pipe and we're really excited to share them with you and we're excited for you guys to follow along. Yeah, as norman, please reach out to us. We really want feedback positive, negative. There's a text thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah if you're on any like music delivery service, so spotify, up in music, amazon, any of the other podcast apps, because we are everywhere. At the top of the description there's going to be a link that says text us or text me now, something like that. Click that, it'll open a text in your cell phone and you can text us your thoughts, criticisms, whatever.
Speaker 1:It's anonymous, unless you don't want it to be, and we should make a little incentive, make a 10% discount for texting us.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, if you text us, we will send you a promo code. Also, we're going to be this is kind of in the next three to five months. We're going to be just this is kind of in the next three to five months. We're going to be expanding our website mostweptbypodcastcom into a little bit more e-com stuff. So if we talk about something here or in video and we like it, we'll potentially be able to have it on the website. You can go and order it and get it straight from us. So check out our website. There's gear lists going to be uploaded once we do our bear stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah we're going to coming down the pipe. I'm going to go over what I use throughout my entire bear hunt. Swift is going to go over what he's using. Those will be two independent videos. The gear list will be on our website. We'll do a summer scouting kind of gear list. We'll do a TAC kind of build and setup. Yep, we have a lot of things coming and we're really excited to share them with you. Yeah, and I mean just some knowledge transfer.
Speaker 2:There's some reloading stuff. There's one that I've already started talking about, which is how to buy a rifle series, because I know that can be an incredibly intimidating process. We may do a little bit of how to buy a bow with Quentin. Yeah, just what to look for, what questions to ask, what kind of experience to expect and not be intimidated. Not being intimidated is cool. It's really like of experience to expect and not be intimidated. It's really like having both worked in gun shops and running a gun shop. You can tell when someone's buying their first gun and they're nervous, and I think we can make that an easy experience for people. Whether you're spending 500 bucks or $5,000, your experience isn't going to change and I think it can definitely give you guys some sweet information.
Speaker 2:If you guys are interested, I might do some reloading stuff, some kind of slash putty rifle, and I'm going to be getting into load. I don't even know. Yeah, I'm going to be getting into what you get. If I know, I don't know. Yeah, it's going to be my analog. It's a 6mm, oh yeah, so 6mm and just some load development, like that process and all that kind of stuff, and so there's going to be a lot of cool media things coming, a lot of how-to stuff. A lot of cool media things coming, a lot of how-to stuff, a lot of reviews all that kind of shit.
Speaker 1:So and one thing I want to put out is that if you have some skills and you like our stuff and you want to maybe film or do whatever, just send us some, just reach out. We. We're definitely coming into the kind of content space where we're not going to be able to run everything ourselves If you have some skills, let us know.
Speaker 2:I can tell you right now I'm looking to hire an editor for video. So if you guys have a, you like video editing or you would like to get into video editing, you have any type of portfolio or reel, go ahead and send it to taylor at conswiflypodcastcom and let's see if we can do some business. And then, yeah, I mean, we're definitely expanding our operation a little bit and we'd love to have you guys come potentially join the Conswifly Media team.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Well, we'll catch you guys on the next one. Yeah, we'll see you Later. Thanks, guys.