The Mountain Dude Podcast
Welcome to the Mountain Dude Podcast, brought to you by Initial Ascent – where we share stories of grit, determination, and the relentless pursuit of growth. This is a space where backcountry hunting meets the deeper lessons of life – success born from struggle, and the art of carrying heavy loads more comfortably, both physically and metaphorically, through faith and perseverance.
The Mountain Dude Podcast
They've Killed Over 20 wolves! Justin and Kate Small
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Justin and Kate Small, two of the best predator hunters on the planet, share their expertise on wolf hunting tactics that can make you a more effective hunter.
• Kate's background includes nursing in Tanzania where she spent four months providing healthcare in poverty-stricken areas, including two months living with the Maasai tribe
• Justin grew up hunting out of necessity and credits his Boy Scout experience for teaching him essential outdoor skills
• The couple explains how wolves devastated game populations in Idaho and Oregon, with each wolf consuming approximately 20 big game animals annually
• Wolves reproduce annually with multiple females per pack breeding, allowing populations to grow up to 40% each year if unmanaged
• Winter is identified as the optimal wolf hunting season due to mating behaviors making wolves more territorial and vocal
• Justin and Kate emphasize the importance of learning wolf patterns and behavior through observation rather than immediate pursuit
• The couple shares dramatic success stories, including an instance where a wolf charged them from 2,000 yards away during breeding season
• In one area where they reduced a wolf pack from approximately 8 to 2 members, they witnessed the elk population grow from about 10-15 to 500 over five years
• Their Western Wolf Academy teaches hunters how to drastically reduce the learning curve for successful predator hunting
To learn more about predator hunting or sign up for their courses, follow Kate (@kate_small_outdoors) and Justin (@justin.small.outdoors) on Instagram or email kate.small.outdoors@gmail.com.
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On today's episode of the Mountain Dude Podcast. I am joined by Justin and Kate Small, two of the best predator hunters on the planet. You don't want to miss today's episode, as we talk about tactics and how to make yourself a better predator hunter.
Speaker 2:That will, in turn, translate to you by initial ascent, where we share stories of grit, determination and the relentless pursuit of growth. This is a space where backcountry hunting meets the deeper lessons of life Success born from struggle and the art of carrying heavy loads more comfortably, both physically and metaphorically, through faith and perseverance. Join us as we explore the paths that shape us, celebrate victories, big and small, and fuel our journey with hope and tenacity. This is the Mountain Dude Podcast, where we climb higher together.
Speaker 4:Joe's a little too comfortable right now. Actually he'll look over in a minute. No pants. Fully given up. I do move a lot, he does.
Speaker 3:The entire show. It's funny. I cannot sit still. Don't ever put me in a tree stand.
Speaker 1:I think the best part, too, is when a light bulb happens with Joe. I'm starting to figure it out now. I've got to find him a window, because I can just see his ears turning. I've got to find a way to get a pause in here so Joe can throw out what's going on. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were telling a story to Chris, because when you guys watch the podcast, my legs will not stop moving and we were telling him we were on a turkey hunt a couple years ago, dennis and I and some other guys, and by routine, the morning get up have coffee and I was like you know, I want some Ignite too. So then we're sitting waiting for turkeys and I'm just like going crazy and I'm texting Dennis time to go, time to go, time to go. And I'm just like going crazy, I'm texting Dennis Time to go, time to go, time to go.
Speaker 4:Time to go. I think it was on. Was it on? No, I was by myself. Right before Dennis came I was sitting on a wallow on our elk hunt last year and I'm like I was going to go hunt and then. So I like drinking and ignite and had eaten breakfast and everything and I'm just kind of sitting there in the morning and because I had slept, the wind comes down, like on this particular section, hard, like at night, and there's a cliff, like to nothing, and I was sleeping on the cliff, so there was bulls on the wallow all night long.
Speaker 4:And so I was just like sleeping, you know, in my sleeping bag on the side of the thing was just like sleeping, you know, uh, in my sleeping bag on the side of the thing anyways.
Speaker 4:So I wake up like a couple smaller bulls had come in and I was gonna go just kind of like timber pound because the area had burned and the the timber slots were just holding all the elk during the day.
Speaker 4:So I drink and ignite and like a few other things and all of a sudden I hear this like mature bull bugle, like 200 yards away. So I'm like sitting there and just kind of like waiting to see if he's gonna come down and I didn't really want to go like push into that area because I knew I would never, never find him and the wind wasn't gonna be great if I headed over there. And all of a sudden that ignite kicked in, oh boy. And I was like, oh man, I lost it. I think I had. I think what I did wrong too is I had one of those Wilderness Athlete ones, but I had drank in the caffeine version and I thought it was just the hydrate one, and then I drank in Ignite because that doesn't normally happen to me and I was sitting there and I was like dude.
Speaker 4:If something comes in right now, I'm not going to be able to control myself.
Speaker 3:You don't need a weapon, right.
Speaker 4:I felt like I could run a marathon, did you have?
Speaker 1:the uh like the skin tingle feel too, or was it just the?
Speaker 4:gap. It was just like the locked, like, like my muscles were like you know, like they were just like ready to go I think I'm gonna have to stop doing the caffeine on the hunts because that's one of the things I'm so impatient and just you know, watching people that are really good hunters are super patient and that's just like that is not me.
Speaker 2:Nothing in life am I patient with.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to have to tone down the caffeine.
Speaker 4:Take some melatonin on the regular First thing in the morning, balance it out All right.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome back to the Mountain Dude Podcast. I'm Chris Young. Joe Elliston's, here with me, needs touch, lord, that you may just do it. We love you, father, and we give you all the praise in Jesus name, amen. Amen, justin and Kate Small, welcome to the Mountain Dude podcast.
Speaker 5:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:I'm excited about this one I've been waiting for, like this is, I've been kind of giddy about this one. We're going to talk a lot about predator hunting, wolf hunting in particular. We might get to some bears, we'll see if time allows. But I'm excited to pick your guys' brains because I genuinely think you are two of the best predator owners on the planet and I say that like wholeheartedly when I, when I say it so no pressure just no starting
Speaker 4:off.
Speaker 5:Pretty wrong there let's see where we can go get ready to be underwhelmed I like it.
Speaker 1:Well, let's get into both of your backstory a little bit before we get things rolling. Um, justin or kate, whichever one you want to start, go ahead you're right, ladies first um just hunting wise background just your whole backstory. I don't know both of you super well like outside of. You know the small interactions we have and I feel like the audience is probably the same way, so I want to get to know both of you a little bit um.
Speaker 5:I was raised in Klamath Falls, oregon, southern Oregon, the the good part. Um grew up there, traveled for a while after high school and went to college. Went to nursing school and that's what brought me to Idaho, was my first nursing job in Boise and hunting-wise, I didn't grow up hunting no one in my family even owned a gun.
Speaker 5:And when I was 19, my mom married my stepdad and I had always loved the outdoors, honestly played sports, from the time I was two through college, and once I didn't have that, I needed something more and my stepdad took me hunting and that it just it. I was like oh, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's why yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:So what I need? So that kind of filled that void of the competitive sports side and, um, it was an awesome bonding experience for him and I, and so that's what kicked it off when I was 19. And then moved to Boise for nursing, met Justin and then just got deeper and deeper into it from there.
Speaker 3:So, kate, there's a time though, right where didn't you spend some time in Africa?
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. So in college I traveled a lot. I've been to about 35 different countries and, um, I just love it, love being immersed in different cultures, and I was. It was my summer year going into my senior year of nursing school and I moved to Africa for four months and volunteered there as a nurse and I was in just a general um regional hospital. So it was very poverty stricken um for the locals and we had no supplies, nothing. I brought a suitcase of supplies and it was gone that first day.
Speaker 5:And so it was using shoelaces as tourniquets and cardboard splints and just anything we could find. And then I moved out for half that time with the Maasai tribe, just in the middle of nowhere. We had no running water, no electricity and I just provided basic health care and education out there.
Speaker 2:Wow, how long did you do that. I'd love to go back. What's that? How long did you do that?
Speaker 5:I was there for four months, wow, so it was fun. I'd love to go back that was in Tanzania, in Eastern Africa? How long?
Speaker 3:did you live with the tribe?
Speaker 5:Um two months.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, that's that's so cool.
Speaker 1:I had no idea, I didn't know that. Yeah, it was fun, justin.
Speaker 5:And then after that, after that, that's when you moved to boise. Yeah, then I had one more year of nursing school and then I moved to boise in 2014.
Speaker 1:Okay, justin, tell me a little bit about you, other than the modeling career that's right, I wish I wish mine was that interesting.
Speaker 4:I grew up right here in eagle, born and raised, and, uh, we hunted when I was a kid, like out of necessity. We, just we. We were super poor family. There were six kids, four of them were girls, so the three boys would go hunting, you know, and it was the first thing that we saw that was legal, was was done you know, that's just how it was we.
Speaker 4:We didn't really hunt to uh for for fun, I mean it was for fun for the guys, but it was more like we we needed that meat to carry on through the year, grew up in boy scouts. Um, you know kate makes fun of me all the time but I look back very fondly on all my boy scout days. I'm like I learned so much about, you know, just the outdoors and survival and stuff in that time period uh, all the way up to an eagle scout, an eagle scout, yeah, and then, uh, yeah, went to kind of like katie went to college, played football and then when I got out of it I had a company here in boise and it was just, um, I mean I'd hunted my whole life every, every season pretty much, except maybe when I was playing college football a couple of times and where'd you play football at?
Speaker 4:I don't say that okay so yeah sorry, but I've learned that lesson the hard way. So then, uh, really really kicked it off again hard, probably a couple years before I met katie and just just kind of needed some sort of outlet or whatever. And uh, even before then I was still backpacking and stuff like that, so I just kind of transferred it into into hunting again. And then, uh, yeah, and then I met katie and and, uh, we started doing all sorts of other hunts together, and then that pretty much leads us to now. She fell in love with me, and then we got married and had a couple of kids.
Speaker 1:How long have you two been married?
Speaker 4:We've been together like eight or nine years. And married five.
Speaker 3:Something like that Awesome, so we've known, you guys I'm trying to do. We know you before you guys got married.
Speaker 5:I yeah, I think we did so yeah I think we did yeah, it wouldn't,
Speaker 2:have been? Yeah, it would have been before.
Speaker 4:Yeah, man, that's crazy isn't it, no, it goes by quick.
Speaker 3:So it's interesting I've had two people say to me that you are a true mountain man, that when they've hunted with you or spent time with you on the mountain, you see things and know things that just like, where did that come from? And you equate that to the Boy Scouts. Do you equate that just to all the years? I mean, was there anybody in your life that just was like taught you that to be able to identify and see those kinds of things?
Speaker 4:I first of all. It's a huge compliment. I don't think anyone's ever said that to my face and I would probably disagree. I know some serious mountain men that would put me to shame, but I would say there was a combination of really good and really bad scout leaders growing up and both of them were really good people, but some of them put me in situations that are that are great now, but like at the time I remember this guy took us out and he gave us like oh, this is your dinner for the two of you, and we had to pack it in and it was like one of those rice, like things you know, and it's like two servings on it like as a side serving right and he's giving that
Speaker 4:to two 12 year old boys as their dinner and so like if you didn't catch like a trout or like I mean, like we were in a serious, actual situation, like from day one, after 14 miles of hiking or something you know, so like. And then I had really good scout leaders on the other end that were like true mountain men and they knew anything and everything. Any plant that you came across. I'm not like that, like I. I recognize most of them, but I don't know their names. Like they knew their names. They knew what you could use them for, like medicinal, wise and all you know. Like that's, that's a true mountain man there and I'm not there yet or anywhere close or probably never will be. But yeah, those guys knew a ton. So I think it was a combination of being in really bad situations and having to learn and being with really good guys that just absolutely knew what they were doing sounds like the scouts made a huge impact on you yeah huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it did.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that's great so you grew up hunting, katie, you got into it late, obviously. When did you guys both start predator hunting? When did that transition happen? Because I know a lot of hunters that have hunted big game forever that don't actually ever predator hunt.
Speaker 5:We started.
Speaker 4:I shot a bear before I met Kate and it was like it would have probably been like two or three years before I met Kate. And it was like it was, it would have probably been like two or three years before I met Kate. And what happened is I bought a rifle tag that year for elk instead of an archery tag and it was my first year going archery hunting with a buddy, just to kind of like I'd never been out during that season. Okay, and uh, I bought a rifle tag and it was super uneventful. I was like like well, there's always bears in there. Like talking to my buddy, I was like I'll just shoot a bear. And I bought a bear tag and like two days later, when we were just hiking around, I was like there's a bear like 80 yards away and pulled my rifle off, boom like, and it was it was like.
Speaker 2:I was like this is easy, you know, in the fall, and I was like, oh, this is the easiest thing.
Speaker 4:And it was not a big bear, it wasn't like wasn't anything special. But like a couple years after that, I think, like when I had met Kate, she was like I've always wanted to kill a bear and I was like, oh, that's easy, because I had had bear baits and stuff and just been that overconfident hunter where I like passed on a lot of bears. You know like sitting there at 20 yards with a medium bear that I should have shot with a bow, you know, and yeah, would, would just really liked watching them and stuff. But I never, like I had never, pulled the trigger on one except that one in the fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're such cool animals yeah, they're so cool.
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, I think we started predator hunting together pretty early on, yeah, and bear was first and wolves came right after. But I like like the why and knowing the science behind things, and once I started learning more about wolves, that's what really kicked it off. I I hunted in oregon before and there they said we didn't have wolves. Well, over the years you I noticed, well, we're not seeing any more deer, but I'm seeing these wolf tracks and you couldn't do anything about in oregon. And when I moved to idaho I was like oh we can.
Speaker 5:We can do something and we can help, and so I had seen the devastation in oregon and moved here I. I wasn't lucky enough to see the big game you guys had before wolves were introduced, but I heard about it from everyone, and so that I was like you know, I want our kids to be able to hunt, and in order to do that we have to manage predators, and that doesn't mean wipe them off the landscape.
Speaker 1:It just means they have to be managed Absolutely Right. Talk to me a little bit about some of that devastation that you did see.
Speaker 5:Just no animals anymore. You'd walk up on kills and just they were spooked. It was a lot, and that was, you know, in a brief period of time. It seemed to happen just a matter of a few years in Oregon. And so here I mean, we see devastation every day. We walk up on kills every single time we're out and the wolves are just. You know, we have pretty liberal laws when it comes to wolf hunting Probably the best wolf hunting laws in the lower 48, but still we can't keep up on them.
Speaker 3:Less than 1% success rate right yeah.
Speaker 5:For the average hunter, I think it's 20 big game percent success rate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, for the average hunter I think it's 20 big game animals per wolf it is per year on average, a wolf will eat 20 big game animals um that.
Speaker 5:They don't, and I don't think there's a way they could count this but, that doesn't include surplus killings, which are spontaneous abortions.
Speaker 5:when the cows are stressed because they're being chased by wolves, elk, they run out to exhaustion. Or if you think of your typical dog, if you take it to a farm, it's never been around livestock, it's going to give chase to those animals. Wolves are the same way. It's just there, it's innate to them, it's what they're born with. They see something, run, they chase it, maim it. They weren't hungry, they were just curious and they walk away and that animal later dies. So that's really where I think the majority of the kills ungulate kills are coming from.
Speaker 5:But yeah, they do, and they're killers. And I, we love hunting wolves because they're unlike any other predator. So you have your bears and mount lions that are reproducing every other year, usually one to sometimes on a rare occasion for um offspring. Wolves reproduce annually and they're finding now which makes sense because essentially they're dogs that they're breeding more than one female in the pack, so you're having multiple litters per pack, and so the population just skyrockets and left unmanaged, it'll grow up to 40% annually. Holy smokes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 40% Because they're not having one or two pups. They may have like six or seven, right?
Speaker 5:Right, right. So and again with you know you could have two pups or you could have 13, and you just you know it's. It's vastly different. I think in the 2023 to 2028 wolf management plan by idaho fish and game, on average it says 4.6 pups per litter, but that study was done back in 2015, so I don't think they have a more recent study of that, so fairly outdated yeah, okay, um, let's talk a little bit about some of the misconceptions, too, behind wool funding, because I think it's kind of been a hot button topic.
Speaker 1:I do feel like it's going the right direction, though, and I think that's because of people like you guys that are shedding light on the things we can do to control the population yeah, I think you know, with wolves and bears too, uh, they're cute and they're cuddly.
Speaker 5:And wolves, you know, people liken them to your domestic dog and they don't get to see the devastation of, you know, an elk being hamstringed and eaten from the tail, end up and left to suffer for hours on end, which, you know, wolves have to survive too. But people don't see that side of things and I don't know why it's not like, oh, that poor deer got shot.
Speaker 5:But it's always wolves and bears. For some reason. Deer got shot, but it's always wolves and bears, for some reason. Um and so, and I think they think every hunter wants them wiped off the landscape, and you know, there's that argument. Whether they were introduced or reintroduced, none of that matters now, because they're here change it right, yeah, yeah, but um, I think there are a lot of misconceptions around.
Speaker 5:Oh, you're just out slaughtering wolves and you know, I wish we could do a little more damage. That's just not the case. They're so hard to hunt, they have a 250 square mile territory and they can run. Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 3:It's huge.
Speaker 5:So once you find them, there's a good chance you don't find them again the next day, because they'll be. I mean, they do run 20 to 30 miles a day as well, if they're not stuck in that area on a kill or something. Or, depending on the time of year, they'll hang out in certain areas. But yeah, and they're fast, they're smart, they've outsmarted us quite a bit.
Speaker 1:And everybody else that's gone after them. So let's talk a little bit about that. What are your guys's favorite tactics to locating?
Speaker 4:wolves, it's it just depends really on, like, the time of the year. If you're, if you're just like the average hunter and let's say you get to go out in the winter, I would say earlier in the winter is better, when there's a little less snow, but there still is snow so you can find tracks.
Speaker 4:Finding tracks is going to be like your best option and then hopping on a map and trying to decide, like, where you think they're going to go, based off where you found them and like this process takes a lot of time to be like like now, in general, the packs that we hunt, I can be like I can drive up on a track and be like, yeah, I know where they're going okay, like, just because they are super patternable, really interesting okay they'll.
Speaker 4:You know they have their area that they like to run. Now how far into that they're going to run. Like they can run 20, 30 miles in a day. They could. If they wanted to, they could run 100. So it's like you day. They could. If they wanted to, they could run a hundred. So it's like you can't. You know you can get to the next spot. You can spend all day driving over to where you think they are and there's their tracks right across the road, gone. You know, like they. You know it's more. Just it's if anyone wants to be good at wolf hunting, unfortunately, like you have to spend a lot of time learning about certain packs. You, if you spend time out there at some point, I do think if you spend enough time wolf hunting, you'll luck into one or maybe two or something, which are.
Speaker 5:Most wolf kills are unintentionally okay yeah, you're out elk.
Speaker 4:Hunting a wolf runs by opportunity yeah, but crossing into like that next realm of like getting it done year after year after year, is you really have to learn about packs and, you know, learn about all these wolf habits and watch them. Like a lot of guys will see a wolf at like you know 1500 yards and be like I'm going to, I'm going to go, you know, and I'm going to catch that wolf.
Speaker 4:you know 1500 yards and be like I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, you know, and I'm gonna catch that wolf, and by the time you get there they're gone and you could have spent that time either figuring out where they went maybe they'll bed down for you or something or just watching them.
Speaker 4:Like you can learn so much just watching a wolf, like you can with anything with deer or elk or anything else you can learn, like you know the routes they take across the mountain, how they act as a pack, how they act when they're about to bed down versus when they're, you know, on the move. Like it's completely different if you start seeing them like all play around in one spot. It's like they're probably gonna bed down pretty close to there and hang out. There's all these things that you can learn just watching them. So like if you go out and see them, that's a huge win. Like if you go out and find tracks, that that's a huge win. Like if you go out and find tracks, that's a huge win. And it doesn't ever feel like it at the time. It's like, oh, you know, if a guy from Boise goes out and spends three days in central Idaho somewhere and we found tracks like all three days, so you don't understand how big of a win that is.
Speaker 4:Man, like what can you? What can you learn? What direction were they headed? Headed you know where? Where did you see the tracks in the three different locations? What route did they take? What time of the year was it? What date? I mean, I literally have wolves that run through the same spots on the same day year after year, like within a day or two, we've that's why trapped wolves, I think, one year, december 7th, one year the sixth, one year the fifth, and so it was no.
Speaker 5:They're very patternable.
Speaker 3:That is amazing yeah, so you made a comment one time on a video I was watching. Um might have been last year when you shot the wolf on the mule deer hunt. I think you got both mule deer and a wolf on that. Yeah, you made a comment because when you saw him he bedded down. But you made a comment like it was something like the time of day or something was like I don't think he's gonna bed because it's such and such, but once he put his head down I knew he was staying yeah so what was it?
Speaker 3:what's the difference? What was it there that you just threw all this knowledge?
Speaker 4:I'm not like, uh, I I haven't been super lucky to. Normally, when I've killed wolves, they they're, they're on their feet and I'm able to cut them off or something. But I do have one buddy and he's I don't know how many wolves he's killed bedded, but it seems like he always finds them bedded and is able to get on them, and one of the things that he preaches is just like deer, elk or anything Like, sometimes they'll have multiple beds throughout the morning you know, and so normally when they get to that first bed see, I thought that wolf was going to lay down
Speaker 4:for a minute and then go, and I figured maybe some of the other wolves were there that I didn't see and it was going to go catch up with them, okay, and so I was just kind of content to sit there and watch this thing, as long as I needed to, to see where it went.
Speaker 4:Now, where that wolf was it was. If it stopped and it was behind a tree, like man, I couldn't see it, you know, and I'd be sitting there staring like I know it's here, I know it's here, and like two, three minutes would go by and start losing faith and I'd all sit and start walking and I'd be like spot, like the sun was going to hit it at some point. There's like a lot of things that were going through my head, like I just didn't in in my head. I didn't think that that would be an all day bed for this wolf, I just thought that it was going to continue on. But you know, if your dog lays down on your floor and they're just kind of like sitting there, you know, and they're maybe not quite comfortable or whatever, and then you know, 10 minutes goes by and they stand up and they walk over to the carpet and they lay down, they're there for a second and they put their head down. You know.
Speaker 2:Like it's a huge difference, like oh he's going to take a nap right now.
Speaker 4:And that's what he did. Like he laid down and like completely stopped moving for maybe like two minutes or something, and I was like, okay, like this is, this is the time, this is as good as it's gonna get, because even if he moves beds at some point, like I could watch him for however long he can move and then he can move again. So this is my opportunity.
Speaker 4:And he ended up staying there, for it probably took me an hour to get to where he was and I almost killed myself getting there, um, but it probably took me an hour to get to where he was. And I almost killed myself getting there, um, but it probably took me an hour to get to where he was, and then it was at least another hour before I shot him. Once I put eyes on him again.
Speaker 1:Okay, so he stayed bedded for quite a while.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for a couple hours and I think he would have been there. I think he was getting closer to. I don't think he was going to leave when he first kind of stood up to stretch when I shot him, but I think he would probably have left in like the next hour to head somewhere else. But I don't know why he stopped there. It just seemed like a weird spot to me, so I can't pretend like I know exactly what he was doing there, but I can tell you, based off his mannerisms, the second that he laid down and went to sleep.
Speaker 5:I was like this is the only opportunity I'm gonna have to kill this wolf and that was also a lone wolf too, so yeah and it's hard to say why it was alone like it was a big wolf.
Speaker 4:It was a big female and, uh, I didn't even look until I was about to skin it. I just assumed it was a male.
Speaker 3:When I walked.
Speaker 4:That was a female yeah, it was probably the probably the second biggest female I've ever shot.
Speaker 5:She was huge.
Speaker 4:I mean, she was like a hundred pound dog, which for a female is a giant, yeah and for for a wolf is there's a wolf, is a giant, yeah, you'll hear people say they're 200 pounds and that just doesn't exist
Speaker 3:that's kind of like that's a dire wolf yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So is that common, then, to find a lone wolf, or are you it?
Speaker 4:just depends, like on the time of the year, not that time of the year maybe, but they also, you know, I think, um, you know that time of the year you do have pups that are still somewhat young, you know, and you're probably going to see them all pretty close to each other with with the mom and maybe the, the alpha. But some of those other wolves might, they might kind of slip away from the pack. I mean, they, you know they'll go away for a day or two and come back and it's not like you know they'll. They're always out, like scouting, just like we are, and finding the elk and you know, or trying to figure out whatever. I mean, they're still like they're a pack animal. But those, especially those ones that are, um, that are kind of younger in the pack or whatever, are super, they're super I don't know how do you say it right, like they're they. They like their own time, I think, too like they don't they're not with the pack all that.
Speaker 4:You don't see them running like all the time as a pack they definitely do send.
Speaker 5:We call them scouts, but they're wolves out and you'll see them split off in different directions to look for a game, and we've seen a lone wolf chase down an elk by itself yeah, really interesting okay what is that?
Speaker 1:that's super interesting to me. It's cool that, uh, you guys have obviously had enough time studying these creatures, so it's I'm like soaking all this in dennis always talks about this. We'll do a podcast or talk to somebody and dennis is like I'm gonna be a velvet mule deer hunter now. I have literally never spent any time hunting wolves and I think that's about to change.
Speaker 5:Listen to this. I'm getting excited. It's fun.
Speaker 4:It's probably one of the most frustrating things, but the nice thing is, you can do it all year, you know right in idaho, and it's also just like I don't want to say like, obviously, like killing a 200 inch mule deer is challenging yeah, 330 bull like all those things are challenging, but like a the wolf thing is something that has challenged me for years and it just never really ends like it's just makes sense, it doesn't matter how good I get at it, I fail all the time, like all the time and it's just so.
Speaker 4:It just keeps my interest more than like a lot of things. Do you know like I love to go bear hunting in the spring? But, I, don't think about it all year the way I think about wolves Interesting.
Speaker 3:So next week we've got Dan Whitmas coming in. He's going to do a yeah Cause he's been to your guys' class so I don't know if you guys, if he sent you guys the video when he killed the wolf, have you guys seen it?
Speaker 5:I've seen it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, he showed us, yeah, the raw emotion that was in that footage of him actually finding, I mean, he's, this guy is like pinnacle type hunter, he's insane, yeah and um. For him to express that in this video, I have to show it to you, yeah, show it to you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just raw excitement just in a canyon where it actually all comes together and it's beautiful, absolutely well, and he's killed wolves in alaska too, but he was like there's, he was like it's nothing like, and killing a wolf in idaho he's like it's not even in the same realm, you know yeah, what do you think that difference is?
Speaker 4:I think the pressure, like the pressure on the wolves in idaho, like they're they're constantly deal with humans, almost even the ones in the frank church and stuff like they're constantly deal with humans almost even the ones in the. Frank, church and stuff Like they're, they're always dealing with some sort of human impact. He says pressure.
Speaker 5:If you shoot at a wolf and you miss, good luck getting another shot at that pack.
Speaker 4:They are so intelligent and that's you might never see him spot again, yeah, so don't.
Speaker 5:If you see him at you, you know what you're not capable of shooting. Don't just start slinging lead.
Speaker 4:Play it smart and just remember that spot and try to study that pack, because once I could have shot they're educated, they this year at like 800 yards, yeah, probably once. I, once I had gotten down, I could see him just before I finally dropped in the canyon and it was like 8, 26 or something and like I'm pretty capable when it comes to shooting and like, I really think I could have made that shot, but I just looked as if I cross over there.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna be at 400 yards, you know and like, and there was no question in my mind that, unless something was absolutely wrong with my gun or something, that I wouldn't put a perfect shot on at that point and I still made the decision, like, I think, a few years ago. I would have tried to take that shot at 800, but that's just come from time and experience.
Speaker 4:Patience Like he was talking about, maybe before we even started or maybe we had started like I've become I don't know if it's just getting into my twilight years or something.
Speaker 5:I've just become a lot, yeah, maybe like the last three years.
Speaker 4:I've just become way more patient like in elk hunting and everything I don't. It's just taken a lot of like probably messing up to get to that point where I was now I just kind of take the extra second and actually think about what I'm going to do rather than rushing to running at an elk or something you know, but I think that's a common thing that comes with experience and time so that's a I always talk about.
Speaker 1:Just it takes time to learn those things, yeah, um, but it's cool to see it kind of all translating and what you guys are doing. If you could pick a season winter, spring, fall what is it that you're hunting? Wolves? Winter winter, the winter why?
Speaker 5:it's mating season, so more territorial, more vocal. Um, if we howl them in a lot and if they hear you howl and they're in the area, the the male and female are getting pretty upset because it's breeding season. They don't want another. It's easier to find tracks. I mean we upset because it's breeding season and they don't want another. It's easier to find tracks.
Speaker 4:I mean, we all know it's easier to glass stuff up in the snow like if you have a snowy ridge that you're, that you think the wolves might be on that day, and they're on it.
Speaker 3:It's way easier to see them, like if it's snow capped, then if it's just the middle of summer or fall or whatever it's way harder to glass them, then will they let their guard down a little bit too, like elk will, and so forth, I think if you're in like the right areas at the right time of the year, like if you, let's say in the spring, if you're, you know, way up in the snow line, close to where they're gonna den, or something, I think, like on our hunt this year.
Speaker 4:On our bear hunt I had the wolves howling and you know it was two in the morning. It was way up away from anything, you know. I just don't think that they were expecting somebody some, you know, idiot to be outside of his tent howling at two in the morning, you know.
Speaker 4:So I think like anything like that, like if you can get way away from the, from the roads or whatever. Whatever like more into their territory, you just sneak away at that. If it's negative 20 degrees outside and you're, you know, eight miles from the truck, they're gonna be a lot less.
Speaker 5:Oh, this is a person right then if it's you know the middle of the summer and you're howling from a road or something which can still happen, that with trapping as well a lot of people trap will trap right off the roads and we like to hike in pretty far to set our traps because they're not expecting that that makes sense.
Speaker 4:So they are obviously really intelligent animals, and usually you guys are almost using that to your advantage to get away from pressure from people yeah, I think you can use like other trappers and other hunters to your advantage, like, especially if I mean it's hard like being down here where you guys are, but we know most the hunters and trappers where we live and I kind of know their style, you know. So, yeah, same thing, like if, if you know all there, you have to be like 10 feet off of a road or whatever with the trap, so if all their traps are 10 feet off the road, and mine's, like you know, a half mile they're just not
Speaker 3:expecting it like yeah like they are with those guys I was reading an article on the intelligence of the wolves and the author was talking about think about this in your home life and you kind of mentioned a little bit this to this earlier that when you go grab, like your leash or your collar for your dog you're gonna take it for a walk dog starts freaking out, right, it just knows. Or if you've got a lab and you're a duck hunter, you grab your shotgun, that dog knows. If you grab your rifle, the dog's like, yeah, nothing right that shotgun right, we're going hunting, we're gonna go.
Speaker 3:I mean, these animals are so intelligent, so smart, and that's why you know, to your point, kate, I mean it's, I think we have. And that's why, to your point, kate, I think we have. What is it like? Just over 1,000?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's 1,150,. I think was the 2023 count. I don't know if 2024 has come out yet.
Speaker 4:I'm not the biggest fan of the way they're counting wolves now either, to be honest, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like one, skip those four, three, yeah Well, I mean for the longest time they used 560 game cameras in the entire state of Idaho 560?
Speaker 4:And they don't count the Frank Church.
Speaker 3:Oh really.
Speaker 5:Or any wilderness area, because it's too difficult for them to get back into, so those are excluded.
Speaker 4:Wow. And then now they do it like what is it? It's like a DNA test. They're turning it this year to a genetic-based model, so it's based off DNA testing from the wolves that are checked in.
Speaker 5:It it's like a dna test. They're turning it this year to a genetic based model, so it's based off dna testing from the wolves that are checked in and it's an estimate there's no way that's accurate yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is because I think you know the original number, if I remember right, for like the whole rockies was like 300, wasn't it yeah?
Speaker 5:that was the original goal and the. The maximum carrying capacity was 1500 for the northern rocky mountain population 500 for idaho right 500 for idaho is the maximum carrying capacity, meaning if we get over 500 we have livestock conflict and decrease in ungulate population. And for years and years now I mean we were at in Idaho alone for a while we were at what the maximum carrying capacity for Idaho Wyoming? Northern Utah northern Utah, eastern third of Oregon and Washington and the entire state of Montana, just in Idaho.
Speaker 4:Just in Idaho, of oregon and washington and the entire state of montana just in idaho. Just in idaho, and like when you were talking earlier about the population declines, like there was right there I mean, I saw it, I don't know if you lived here, yet you grew up here I didn't yeah, like I. I mean, you probably did too. I saw it firsthand like bad oh yeah like just absolutely.
Speaker 4:When I was a kid, like you could go out and me and my dad and brother would like, like we had a rifle and that was like our hunting gear you know, everything else was just normal, like normal boots, normal car heart pants and a shirt or whatever, and we go, walk roads and we would kill deer and elk every single year, right? No special binoculars, no, you know, tripods, nothing, just offhand shots different abundance and abundance and we would see elk and deer every single day.
Speaker 4:And now it's like you have to sit in the most beautiful canyon that should house however many deer and elk, and you sit there in glass all day and you see a couple of them right or? You find a really good canyon. You find like a decent amount, but I feel like that used to be everywhere.
Speaker 5:Yeah, totally. It's changed elk behavior as well, so you're finding elk down on private where they feel more safe, and that's generational because they're calving down there and then it's causing the ranchers tons of money because the elk are eating all their crop and the wolves are killing cattle, and then we're losing houndsmen because the wolves are killing hounds right and then that's going to explode our other predator populations as well so it must be, because they just, you know, 2025 now there's no season, I mean there's no start and stop season on mountain, yeah, right, idaho.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, so it all kind of happening. Yeah. Domino effect yeah, it absolutely is, and I think.
Speaker 5:I don't think they anticipated that with the introduction of wolves. I wish colorado would have learned right and looked at idaho a little bit more before they introduced them.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they already had them but, just yeah, well, and like you're talking about justin, I was kind of really getting into it as a kid during those days and I can remember as a kid, going out with dad and dad been like, oh yeah, we used to be able to sit here and shoot deer elk all the time, and now it's like we're literally walking up on wolf kills yeah, yeah and I was young like I didn't understand it in those scenarios.
Speaker 1:But like we were as a child like growing up hunting I was watching elk behavior change like I could one year we could expect such and such, and then you were literally watching them behave entirely different. Yeah, not coming out into the in the light, like not being timbered up all the time and it's like what is going on I remember like it was such a like I'll never forget it.
Speaker 4:I was sitting on the floor watching the news Like if it was like lucky in my house if I got to stay up and watch the news and we had like two channels and we were watching the news is probably it was 1995, I think, 1994. Like I was young and it was a video of them releasing the wolves and I remember like being like, oh, it's so cool or whatever. You know, blah, blah, blah. I had no idea how much it would impact my life at that point. Right.
Speaker 3:But I remember my dad being like.
Speaker 4:Well, there's the end of the good old days in Idaho.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I remember like word for word what he said, like, and to this day, like I asked her, I have like zero memories from yesterday like I can't remember anything you know, but I remember, like I remember what my dad was wearing, like it's the weirdest thing, and it's so weird how it ended up impacting me in such a huge way and at the time I was just like, like everyone else. Oh, this is so cool, yeah no, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I used to think the same thing as a kid and I can remember. I have a not that story, but a similar story where we were hunting elk and my uncle and I had located a really good bull. What was a really good bull at this point? So he was probably like 240 to be honest Stud yeah.
Speaker 1:Giant as a kid and I grew up like you did it. You deer pushed pretty much like the kids. The younger guys would push elk out into the open so the old guys could shoot them from the ridge. Yeah and uh, we had located these bulls. Uh, and this bull that was. That was a really good bull and we went in the next day. We gave it overnight, that was last light. And then we came in the next day and there was a wolf sign everywhere and just dead. There was multiple dead cows and dead calves and that was like the initial where I was like holy smokes, like this is what you were talking about dad.
Speaker 4:Like, and especially at first, like when they were new to the elk, they didn't know. Like they didn't know what to really do, you know because, I mean you have to think, to them it was just a big coyote and they didn't know how to react.
Speaker 5:It was devastating because they didn't know to be that scared and I think and that's what I assume we'll see with colorado, is the out there, don't know and you'll see that ungulate population severely plummet and then it might start to slowly come back a little bit.
Speaker 4:It depends what they do, hunting wise too, like, if they allow hunting.
Speaker 1:So do you? Do you both genuinely think hunters can make an impact on?
Speaker 5:it. No, I think, short of severe measures we won't get control of the wolf population. Especially, I think trapping, you have a slightly higher success rate, not much, but slightly higher. Um. And then they, just, with the new federal grizzly lawsuit, um, they stopped trapping for most of the state. They shortened it, so it used to be september through end of march and now it's december 1st till the end of february and so I think we're going to see a large impact.
Speaker 4:I think you need to see like a few things happen like yes, I do think the general public can take care of the problem, but not without judges and fishing games stepping in the way and making it impossible every step of the way. And I don't think it's obviously like all fishing game or anything like that, but there shouldn't, like at this point in, in my eyes at least, until the the situation's under control. Why do we have a trapping season on wolves?
Speaker 2:makes no sense at all.
Speaker 4:You should be able to. They need to have some sort of grant or something like that for people to go into the frank church wilderness and trap these wolves, because I mean, you're gonna have to go in there, stay in a wall tank, you're gonna have to do it old style like there's just not a way to you know they're.
Speaker 4:you know, maybe specifically for wolves, they need to take away the flight restriction so people can fly in, check their traps the same day or something, and fly out. I mean, there's there's a lot of things that they have to do to to change it if they want the public and it needs to become more lucrative or or some something. Because, like, right now you can get reimbursed we all know that but um, and I'm not saying you have to get paid but I can tell you the amount of reimbursements I've got is nowhere close to the amount of money that I've spent wolf hunting Like I could. I could turn in receipts for ever Like I've lost my but trying to be out there.
Speaker 5:You have to be out every three days to check out um which is a good law, um, but it's just the gas and time. So where we trap, it's a full day that it takes us and yeah it's two days a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, now, at a local level, like the average person that goes out and hunts the same herd in the same unit, you think that they can make an impact on a wolf population?
Speaker 4:I think I think they'd have to put in a lot of time. I think the problem is you just see people. It's like what's the average success rate for elk in Idaho?
Speaker 3:Like 10% maybe 5% to 10%.
Speaker 4:So wolves is like 0.003. It's 0.0006%. That was 2023. I love all these statistics.
Speaker 1:I love it. I nerd out on that stuff. So she's just spitting them out. I'm loving it. Yeah, that's what I nerd out on that stuff.
Speaker 4:So she's just spitting them out. I'm loving it. Yeah, that's what I hate to have.
Speaker 1:I was expecting you to come with all the stats.
Speaker 4:to be honest, I have a lot of them, but she's much more well-spoken. I'm not smart.
Speaker 5:I like to know the reasons and why we're doing what we do.
Speaker 4:I think, just when you see like like nobody wants to do something and be unsuccessful all the time, I think you need like a different type of person. That that is just okay with that. I don't know, like, I think I'm just a little retarded, cause I'm totally okay with it, you know.
Speaker 1:But I really do.
Speaker 4:It's tough, yeah, I mean, not everyone has the time.
Speaker 5:Most people just to get out for elk for a weekend. That's a big deal. And so I think most people don't have time.
Speaker 2:We've kind of set up our entire life, so we can have time, and we, you know, move.
Speaker 5:We lived in Boise and we both left lucrative jobs to move to a small town where we'd be closer to public land. Um, and so there's sacrifice in that, but it is. You can't blame somebody who's working Monday through Friday, has a family, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, and something that I think I want to challenge people to do in this scenario is we've talked about this throughout this entire podcast. Like, you guys know what you're doing and a lot of that's come from time and experience and you can tell listening to some of these stories. So maybe it's something where you don't spend a week doing this, but every year you take two days on a weekend throughout the winter, cause you guys are talking about, your favorite time to do this is during the winter. That's a slow time. None of us have a ton going on, we're not hunting anything else Exactly it's a take one weekend every winter two weekends.
Speaker 4:And there's always people that luck into them.
Speaker 1:So like that you know that it helps.
Speaker 4:Like it might not be the the solver of the problem, it definitely might make you. We're trying to do like we. You know we met with shields yesterday. We're gonna do a we're gonna make our western wolf academy thing like a little more accessible for people so we're gonna do a class here at shields okay, talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 4:It's just gonna be like we're gonna do the western wolf academy but we're gonna condense it like into one day okay, just kind of like an eight hour. I don't want to say lecture, but like type of it. Just you know, crash course, crash course on, you know, and the nice thing is is, like you know, katie kind of convinced me to do this and I'm not like a public social guy.
Speaker 4:I'm just not. I'm not a public speaker, I'm none of those things, but, um, it's, it's something that I do, know enough about that I can get up and just kind of for somebody. You know we obviously charge money, for we don't make money off of it. You know, I work in Texas. You guys know that, like I, you know we don't but it. But it's one of the reasons that we charge money for the Wolf Academy and stuff like that One because we have to, because we have overhead.
Speaker 4:But the other part of it is that we don't charge a lot of money and it's to show that people are serious.
Speaker 4:So the people that are showing up aren't just there to steal ideas, so they can go on some podcast and talk about something they know nothing about or anything like that. It's these people that are going to show up and it's the initiative to be like, yeah, I'm here, I spent a couple hundred bucks or whatever and I'm going to listen to somebody that actually knows more than me. And then the thing is, when you go to the Wolf Academy or this new class that we're going to have is you are literally I mean, I've been doing this probably 10 years now or pretty close to. You're cutting your your learning time down by literally that much. If you go and learn, you are cutting your your learning time down significantly by just going in there listening and then taking what you learned and apply it. I guarantee you're still going to make mistakes I still make mistakes all the time but you're going to cut your learning curve in half what took us years?
Speaker 5:is just condensed down and we just basically regurgitate all our mistakes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's always a good thing yeah, there's a lot of what like a lot of what I teach is based off things that I did wrong, that I was like hey if I had done this, that would be one more wolf on the wall.
Speaker 5:And we cover hunting and trapping and I do encourage people to get into trapping. I think that's the most beneficial way of cutting down a wolf population. But back to whether hunters can take care of them. In one of the areas we've trapped out the pack. We get down to about two every year on this pack and we've seen more elk and more deer and big every year.
Speaker 4:So you're seeing, yeah, so I think it's like it was crazy and probably like five years of trapping in that area and, like in this, in the late in the fall and early in the spring they kind of congregate in this one drainage to move up the drainage and when we first started doing it, there was maybe what like 10 elk, yeah, 15 elk, couple big horns, and then it changed in this progression to where there was, like like last year I shit you not there was probably 500 elk in this one drainage like just a massive amount of elk.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 20 to 40 big horn at any time. Wow, deer everywhere you know. And it was like this crazy just by knocking the pack down to like two every year. What's the average?
Speaker 3:pack size how many wolves, so same study in 2015, it's six.
Speaker 5:6.4, I think, is the average pack size, I would say in our area it's seven to eight going into the fall seven to eight.
Speaker 4:You see some that have like 10, but like seven or eight is pretty common.
Speaker 3:And then so that's over 200 animals if I'm doing the math. Yeah, that they're gonna kill.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, a year, yeah, so if you think, about that number that I threw out, there's maybe four or five hundred elk. I mean, if you think about that, it only takes a couple of years to compile.
Speaker 1:What was that time? Difference from the 10 to the 500 like five years maybe like at the end of the five years last year.
Speaker 4:It was crazy yeah, that's yeah huge impact and so just in that area, it was just this massive difference and I don't know if there was more animals packing in there because they knew they were safe. Because it's weird, like in this canyon, like I'm walking up the canyon, I have a trapping backpack on metals clanking together.
Speaker 4:Every animal within 100 miles knows those are coming and the elk, like they'll be 80 yards away just looking at me and just go back to feeding, like they feel no threat by me for some reason when I'm in there.
Speaker 5:I think they just know yeah interesting but we can tell when the wolves are nearby? Yeah, because you don't see them the elk are gone behavior changes drastically and that's another big thing we look for is ungulate behavior. When we are out hunting that wolf we saw chasing elk. I had just turned to justin and said are? You telling the real version of the story I just turned to justin and said those elk look spooky. And I look back and a wolf is chasing an elk, oh wow do you know what she said?
Speaker 4:why is that rock chasing those elk?
Speaker 5:In my head it looked like a rock.
Speaker 4:I was like that's a wolf.
Speaker 5:I said it and then I was like it's a wolf.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious.
Speaker 5:Thanks.
Speaker 1:Jeff, it's all good. That's awesome. I love it. Well, while we're telling stories, let's hear each of your favorite wolf hunting story.
Speaker 5:I'd say the first one that's your favorite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you tell me the story?
Speaker 5:Yeah, one of our buddies in Montana is an excellent wolf hunter and we went up hunting with him and it was that year where it was just freezing.
Speaker 4:The polar plunge up here I think it was negative 44 with the wind chill um and there was a ton of snow.
Speaker 5:And we got out and justin spotted wolves instantly. Just we were go going there thinking we weren't gonna see anything, but spotted them instantly. So we ran down the trail about a quarter mile and they were on this frozen lake and Justin was set up on one side, I was set up on the other and we were getting ready. We were watching these wolves come down the timber and hit the lake and just travel along um the shore basically. But it was far, it was.
Speaker 4:I mean, we didn't know, like none, Like none of our range finders or electronics would even work. It was so cold.
Speaker 5:It was so cold and so.
Speaker 4:It was just guessing.
Speaker 5:We started howling and it was February, so mating season and you could hear a wolf up on the mountain, just angry, and Justin was on his knees with his rifle, um, next to him, and he turned towards me and our buddy and said I think that wolf's getting closer. And our buddy said do not move. And that wolf right then had hit the ice and she was.
Speaker 4:She was barking. All the other wolves were howling and she was barking and it was like like a dog behind a fence like like this different bark, you know, and I didn't know any, like I'd been wolf hunting, but I didn't know, like I'd never heard them like like this was a huge learning experience.
Speaker 4:And I turned to him and said I was like I don't know anything about wolf hunting. I was like, but that wolf sounds pissed and looked over the top of me, like I'm looking over joe, and was like, don't move, that wolf is sprinting at us. And it was like 2 000 yards away, just like nothing you've ever seen.
Speaker 4:I mean, I didn't get to see it, but I was looking and kate's like this and our buddy is like this they're both like oh like, looking at each other and stuff, and I'm and my back's turned and we couldn't shoot because I would have shot justin.
Speaker 4:He's in my way and our buddy goes when I say now grab your rifle and aim to 200 to justin, and he says now and I turn to grab my gun and turn and like, looking at the snow, I mean it was all snow and then a wolf, like it was pretty obvious.
Speaker 4:And I mean when I pulled up I had my scope fully zoomed in, because before that they were five, six, 700 yards away, Didn't even really know, and that my crosshairs came to right here, like on its mouth, and that thing dropped because it caught its first movement and you know, yep, a thousand, two thousand yards of running and just started growling and drooling and I was like, and I just pulled the crosshairs down and pulled the trigger and hit it right here. Well, I like had the range finder in my shirt, you know, and finally got it to work and pulled it out 45 yards, oh, wow and I was like dude if you ever tell me a wolf's at 200 yards when it's at 45 yards and it's trying to eat me?
Speaker 3:but they're just because normally it's not like that, you know, like smokes but that was our first that was your first year hooked.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think my favorite one was with dennis. I guess, yeah, then, kate shot.
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, an hour later I shot one.
Speaker 4:Right after she got frostbite On the finger. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I remember that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I didn't want to shake my hand off the gun because it was coming in.
Speaker 4:It came in like completely the opposite, like super chill, took like 30 minutes to come in, you know yeah. And then she, it was my fault, I was, was like aim for what? I tell you, 100?.
Speaker 5:I can't remember yeah.
Speaker 4:I said just hold crosshairs. And she pulled the trigger and I mean you could see it on video like just scrape the bottom of the wolf and it took off and I started barking and Luke started howling and it stopped again broadside and I told her aim for 300. And she just hit it right in the heart. I mean I've never seen more blood come out of an animal.
Speaker 5:It still ran about 400 yards.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it ran like 400 yards, which is so tough To their toughness. Yeah, I mean you could see like when it was running blood just pumping out both sides. And the blood trail in the snow was crazy.
Speaker 3:So you guys doubled up on your first run. Yeah in.
Speaker 1:The snow was crazy, so you guys doubled up on your first.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's pretty awesome yeah that's super cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. Tell us the uh dennis story me and dennis.
Speaker 4:Well, how long ago was it, dennis? Three years ago, four years ago, five years ago? Four years ago, he's motioning. Four years ago we were, uh, in the frank on a, on a bear hunt and we didn't see much for bears, but the first night when we were sleeping in our tent, the trail was about 80 yards away and we had the wind and you could hear these wolves. I don't know if we even said anything to each other, but the wolves are coming down the trail and they were howling there's. You could tell maybe two, maybe three of them, I couldn't really tell, but they were howling back's. You could tell maybe two, maybe three of them, I couldn't really tell, but they were howling back and forth and one of them was, like you could tell, was the alpha, like just the super. The first time you hear it you'll know. And so they cross.
Speaker 4:They crossed below us and went down and the next morning I was kind of looking at my maps and I was like you know, if they're gonna cross back up to where they came from, like this big drainage, I'm assuming they're dented in there somewhere, they're going to cross back up to where they came from, like this big drainage. I'm assuming they're dented in there somewhere. They're probably going to cross through the saddle. And I had said that to Dennis like kind of nonchalantly, and it was in the area we were headed. So I was like why don't we just camp like right near that saddle, so we go up there the next day on a death march and get in there and set up the teepee and stuff, and you don't see any bears, of course, and uh, it looked great, but we weren't seeing anything.
Speaker 4:And so we go to sleep and the next morning wake up and you know we're glassing and Dennis starts making coffee and like over the the jet boil, I just I could have swore I heard a howl, you know, and I was like I think I told Dennis I was like shut that thing off or something you know. And he turned out. I was like I heard a howl and he was like, I think in his head he's like you're crazy, you know, like we didn't hear a howl and like right before he turned it back on, all of a sudden you could hear it howl again, you know, and they were coming straight up the way that I had assumed they would come. And so we're sitting there glass and it's like a like. Yeah, at some point I yelled to Dennis get my gun. I don't remember that.
Speaker 5:I think I blacked out, but what it was was get my gun, not get your rifle, Please help me get my gun.
Speaker 2:Get me my good things.
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure he said he know what you meant so we're glassing and we pick up a wolf coming like straight the direction that we thought we would. Well then I spotted a black wolf, I think, if I remember right, and dennis spotted a gray wolf, and we thought we were talking about the same wolf in the same spot but it was confusing because I was like, what are you talking?
Speaker 4:that's not where it was, you know. And and anyways they, we just kind of get set up because I know they're going to come through this, they're coming right on track to go through this saddle and dennis was trying to find a spot like on the ground. Um, because at the time when we first bombed, they were like 700 yards, you know, and I was trying to find a spot and finally gave up and there was like this one log that went up and broke off and went down, and so I, I put my, I put something like a shirt or something on it and put my rifle right on it and we were sitting there and all of a sudden I looked to my left and they were just 700 yards away, just as to how fast they are. And I look over and the one wolf that Dennis had saw this massive gray alpha male is about to cross into the saddle. He's like 120 yards away and I'm like Dennis, right here, right here, and Dennis was like he didn't have a setup or anything and he was kind of like I was shooting this way and he was kind of like here and I was like I think I said are you good? Or something like that. And he was like yeah, and he just kind of leaned over and I howled really fast and the wolf just stopped and looked at me and I just drilled him.
Speaker 4:And as I drilled him, I started looking for the other wolf and the other wolf was just sprinting. He must have been right there too, but I didn't see him the black one and he starts sprinting to the right and I fired off a shot and figured he was about 200, and I missed him. I don't know where I hit, but he kept running and I knew I only had one round left in my gun. So I jacked around and howled and this is another thing to like learning their body language. He started like like bouncing, kind of like a coyote does you know where? They like bounce and kind of look back, and I knew he was gonna stop. But as soon as he went over that ridge he was gone and he stopped like right at the ridge and at this point I didn't know how far he was. So I just kind of in my eyes, I just kind of like put it so that I would still hit him if he was.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't guess yeah, I did some kentucky windage.
Speaker 4:I did some some math in my head and pulled the trigger and he turned and jumped and ran over the ridge and, like I think, dennis, didn't have faith in me I think dennis didn't think I hit him and I was like I don't know. It sounded good, like that was all I could think in my head.
Speaker 4:It felt good like I was on him and we go over and I think we made coffee real quick and we go over and can't forget this alpha male like because we've ended up taking a couple alpha males out of this pack and this alpha male was like kate has like a dang near boone and crockett bear that she took. It's like 19 and a half and this wolf skull is like right there yeah, he is massive wow, like he was he.
Speaker 4:You know the pictures will never be good. He had like a spring coat. He had like no hair. You know the pictures will never be good. He had like a spring coat. He had like no hair. You know that was the biggest dog I think I'll ever shoot in my life Like. I bet he was close to like that one 15 pound and I don't think he had anything in his stomach. He was just a massive, massive wolf. And the other one was like a. He was like a year old but he was dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we went over and walked walked like.
Speaker 4:I walked like right to where he was and I was like, oh, there's a little blood right here. And I like looked up and the wolf was like two steps from where I had last seen him dead and I was like, oh, and there's that one too beautiful and that was probably my favorite one, just because dennis was there and then you guys know how the rest.
Speaker 5:But that I mean that was lucky, because we've lost a lot of wolves that we know are dead and they just hide. Really, yeah, really well, you think it's hard to find a bear.
Speaker 4:I mean they soak it up even more the wolves well, they don't really soak it up more, it's just they're smaller and like they can ball up and like yeah, so if they roll underneath a log or something and there's some bushes right there, man like you can lose them so easy. Like we found a couple that I was like looking for for hours and like right at the last blood, and I'm like he's right here, like wow, like they can just get into this little teeny thing even though they're big animals like but they're tough, they are tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome now, that gets me excited I gotta make it out this winter sounds like this winner's got a book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we got plans now, so when are you guys going to do this deal at shields? Do you guys know yet the dates?
Speaker 5:we're gonna do it tentatively march 7th and we'll advertise a little more 26, yeah, okay but yeah, just a condensed version of terrain to hunt them in, how to hunt them different times a year, to hunt them their behaviors, where they are during different times man.
Speaker 1:Is there a way to sign up now, or is that not yet available?
Speaker 5:just message me, and that's usually how it goes pre-list by messaging katie.
Speaker 1:There you go, and while we're on that, before we get to a little rapid fire, where can listeners find both of you?
Speaker 5:um. You can find me on instagram at kate underscore small underscore outdoors and I'm justin dot small dot outdoors, perfect and youtube. I think our channel is Small Outdoors. Small Outdoors, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, you've got some good films on there.
Speaker 1:Yes, we'll put a link in that. Well, chase, definitely not me, or definitely not Joe. Yeah, exactly, chase. We'll put a link to the YouTube channel in the description. Check out some of the recent bear hunt videos, because those have turned out sweet Joe.
Speaker 3:So we like to do a little rapid fire. We make it easy, though. We give you the answers.
Speaker 2:You just got to pick one.
Speaker 3:So, Justin, I'll start with you and then we'll go back and forth here. So I'll ask you a question. Just answer which one. It would be Spring bear or fall bear hunt. Spring bear, so, Kate, elk meat or bear meat? Elk country or rock and roll country. Coffee or energy drink. Coffee fixed blade or replaceable blade, fixed blade. Last but not least, podcast or radio podcast okay there we have it now that okay.
Speaker 1:Uh, western wolf academy where can listeners sign up?
Speaker 5:um message me on instagram or email me at kate small outdoors at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:perfect, well, thank you guys for coming on the mountain dude podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah thanks for having thanks having you guys.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you coming in, remember to hit the uh like and subscribe button and uh, drop some comments and we'll try to pin these two down to answer any wolf questions you guys got yeah thank you guys until next time, keep your eyes on the summit.
Speaker 2:This is the mountain dude podcast signing off.
