The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 066 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Eric Boone
Are you ready to step into the wild and thrilling world of predator hunting? Prepare to be captivated as we chat with our guest, Eric Boone, a seasoned predator hunter from Eastern Washington. Born and raised in a farming community, Eric carries a legacy of hunting stories and heirloom weapons that are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. His recount of an unforgettable encounter with a bear cub in a tree stand is merely the tip of the iceberg. And yes, he did pet the cub!
Are you ready to step into the wild and thrilling world of predator hunting? Prepare to be captivated as we chat with our guest, Eric Boone, a seasoned predator hunter from Eastern Washington. Born and raised in a farming community, Eric carries a legacy of hunting stories and heirloom weapons that are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. His recount of an unforgettable encounter with a bear cub in a tree stand is merely the tip of the iceberg. And yes, he did pet the cub!
Howdy folks and welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. I'm your host, michael. We've got another great one for you today. Today we actually connect with Eric Boone. Eric reached out to me and said I am going to give you some crazy stories, and when I asked him what the episode is going to be like, he says it's going to be a shit show, and he did not disappoint. Eric is a predator hunter out of Eastern Washington and I think anyone that just really specializes in predators is going to have some crazy stories. So I want to thank Eric for putting on the podcast. I had a ton of fun, even getting stung by a scorpion right around the end of the podcast. Hope you guys enjoyed that, but I still had a great time. So make sure you guys go out there and follow us on Instagram. Make sure you give us a quick review on whatever you're listening to right now so we can help find other folks but other than that let's go ahead and kick this thing off and let Eric tell you some of his stories.
Speaker 1:All right, eric, welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Man, how are you?
Speaker 2:Good Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I'm glad I didn't scare you away For the listeners. Eric reached out to me on Facebook and, for whatever reason, the message got lost after I replied. So I like, how long ago wasn't it that you were you originally messaging me? It had to be like three or four months a month ago. Probably either way.
Speaker 2:I apologize.
Speaker 1:I don't know why it doesn't want to show me those messages, doesn't give me alerts. Either way, I tracked him down and now we have Eric Boone on the podcast to tell some some. Well, he says it's going to be a shit show, so he's going to tell some stories. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2:It's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1:All right, man. Why don't we kick this thing off by letting you introduce yourself, Eric? Who are the people.
Speaker 2:Stories from today. Oh yeah, so I'm Eric Born and raised in a farming community in South Eastern Washington, grew up farming, grew up around animals, grew up working hard, playing hard, started out really just taking care of coyotes around the farm. We had anything from chickens to horses, cow, sheep, goats, ducks so a lot of predator birds and stuff protecting the ducks and chickens and gotcha.
Speaker 1:Is that how you started hunting, or were you, was your family hunters, or? Was it just strictly, just preserving the wild life of your farm, my, grandfather's hunted my one grandpa.
Speaker 2:he was a big game hunter but Moose hunted mostly in Canada, up in the Yukon area, northwest Territories up around Great Slave Lake.
Speaker 2:Okay he did that. I can't tell you how many times he went up there Then Idaho, all over Idaho hunting my other grandpa he was a bird hunter. He lived for bird hunting, had springer spaniels raise them up from as long as I can remember tell, probably five or six years before he passed and stuff. Yeah, I got that Mostly the hunting, just stories from my grandpa. He passed down a 32 special lever action Winchester rifle to me.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, built 1905 or 1906. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's actually on my list. I've already told my wife and I'm like I am going to splurge on a couple heirloom weapons. My father no, excuse me, my grandfather on my mother's side, he was a hunter, but he passed when I was six, so before I was old enough to hunt and all of his guns which he served in World War II.
Speaker 1:So he had his service rifles, all sorts of stuff and I remember seeing them in the basement of their house. They went to my uncle and my uncle sold them. And I was thinking about it maybe four or five years ago and I was mom whatever happened to grandpa's guns, like oh went to uncle Mike and he sold them and I was like oh man hindsight right.
Speaker 1:So I decided that I'm going to restock the family arsenal and I told my wife that, like I'm going to save up and I'm going to buy a couple like heirloom guns and a lever action is absolutely on the list.
Speaker 2:Oh, you have to have a shotgun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I'm just gonna. I'm going to do it, I'm going to take my time. I'm going to buy these guns. One's going to go to my son, the other one's going to go to my daughter and hopefully those just go down the family line, and even if they don't even use them, just keep them in the family. Absolutely, absolutely, and I'm hoping that, like like you said, he says 19,.
Speaker 2:Oh, whatever it was, manufactured, yeah, not really old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm hoping that in a hundred years, my great, great, great gang kids are like oh yeah, I was manufactured in 2023. And the stores behind it? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like when my other grandpa passed away, he gate had a gun for all his daughters plus all the grandkids and my aunt reached out and said, hey, I got grandpa's rifle. You want to use it to hunt with? And I was like what's just an old Ramitun 730 out six and I was like I'd kill an animal with that heck yeah. Yeah, so I'm excited to do that, probably next spring. Use that rifle.
Speaker 1:Very cool, very cool. Well, we got off track. That tends to happen, but you know, eric, you came here to tell some fun stories, so why don't you set the stage? Let's just jump right into it. All right, and let's do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, talking to the wife, I mean, how long do you want this podcast to be? Because it could be three hours of just stories that we've had and stuff. So the one that I'm going to tell first is probably one of the stupidest stories ever.
Speaker 1:Plus my favorite, let's go probably the Harrius.
Speaker 2:So in Idaho, from where we camp, there's a I don't know if you ever heard of the Hiawatha Trail. It's the railroad goes all the way to Tacoma, to Chicago, milwaukee, in through there. Well, there's a big, huge area up there where you can just four wheel to and it's a road. It's really rough and overlooked in a Montana and it's just beautiful, big, huge bowl, seen elk in there, seen deer, seen grizzlies in there.
Speaker 2:So we're going up and we're four wheeling and I'm driving and my wife is sitting next to me and I got my AR with me and a pistol and we drive up the trail and we happen to look down this ATV trail that comes in and we're like well, someone put a post in the middle of the trail. That's kind of stupid, keep going. And the ear twitch and we're like that's not a post, that's a stinking wolf. So I take off. After it hit the brakes jump out. My wife's like well, I'm going to go up and call my mom and my sister is like all right, I'm going in after this wolf going out here real quick.
Speaker 1:Is this a wolf hunt? You said you're out there hunting with an AR. What are you actually looking for? I'm sure you haven't a wolf.
Speaker 2:We're just lashing, just looking for fall, looking for animals, just chilling. This was like July, August.
Speaker 2:So, it was caught out and going after it and I'm carrying a 357 revolver, there's my first mistake. Go in and I see it and I'm just quiet, and from the left to the right the wolf runs about 35 yards from me. I'm like, oh heck, yeah, sweet, cocked my pistol and sitting there. And then it turns and goes right to the left. I was like okay, it's coming in closer, about 25 yards, sometimes sitting there like oh, it comes out again, I'm going to shoot it. And about that time two passed.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 2:One going left to right, one's going right to left and I went, that's interesting. There's two, so sit there a little bit longer and I'm kind of sitting up against a tree in the brush. Happened to look down the trail and there's three walking up the trail. I'm like, okay, so there's three there, two in front of me, there's five. I have six shots. I'm like I am outgunned right now. I'm sitting there and probably about five minutes goes by and look kind of look behind me and there's two more coming in behind me.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 2:And I'm like okay, I'm outgunned. My AR is in the side by side, I have six shots. I have no extra rounds with me. Great move, itty, I'm cussing at myself. So I'm sitting there 10 minutes go by and they got to about 20 yards from me and that's it. They hung up, wouldn't come in anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm like all right, the first one that they're pretty obviously aware that you were there. I imagine they're sniffers. They know it.
Speaker 2:They do pretty well. They had to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm not moving and I'm like, okay, first one that comes under the trail I'm going to pop, maybe the rest will scatter. About that time I hear my side by side startup. I'm like, okay, my wife's coming game on, she'll have the AR. So she pulls down and instead of coming into the trail to pick me up, no, she stays on the road, shuts the machine off. The wolves kind of scattered a little bit. So I get up and walk out, grab the AR. I'm like I'm going back in tell my wife what happened and go back in after them and with the AR and nothing, they scattered. Once they heard that machine up, they were gone. We'll come to find out about 20 yards down the trail. They had a moose kill, right there oh yeah, so they were defending the kill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot more sense I'm just like we sat there and nothing and it goes into a huge deep draw, just huge and nowhere to be found. So we go back and the next week go back up there. It was me, I think it was me, my dad, that went up the next weekend on the side by side, ar in hand. Now I haven't carried my 10 mil block 20 with me, 16 rounds, four mags I'm loaded, go back in and nothing. The moose completely picked clean, wolf track everywhere.
Speaker 1:They started, or a cow, moose it was a big cow.
Speaker 2:Okay, good stuff. Thank God it was a bull. I probably would have taken the antlers.
Speaker 1:I know that's what I was going to ask, yeah.
Speaker 2:But go back in there. Me and Dad are just sitting there talking and the whole area around us just erupted. And my dad's a pretty tough guy. He's been in the woods. I've never seen a shoe. He was probably 64 year old, 63 year old man jumping aside by side, so quick to run he was going. I'm like no, let's go after him.
Speaker 1:But I'd be right there with your dad. Man, I'm not as brave as I'd like to be. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2:It's scary, especially when you get a pack like that, one on one. I'm not with even with my six shooter, I wasn't scared with just one or two. But when I saw the whole pack plus there was more behind them howling than I never saw I just heard them. So there could have been 10, 12 of them in there, I don't know, but that was yeah. From that day forward I never carried another revolver with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's funny I was thinking I actually have a 357 Magnum, but mine's a five round revolver. Okay, yeah, so I would have been even more outgunned than you would have been.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Wolf's scared that crap out of me and they're going to be in Colorado soon, so I basically oh yeah better get used to them.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, and you know, I've heard of them attacking people. I've read all my. They've attacked a couple of people but come down to it, I think they're more scared of you than you are of them. I think so I don't know, I'm kind of chubby, so I might make a good meal for them.
Speaker 1:Have you? I don't know if you listened to episode 24 with Brittany Kitchton Yep, yeah, her wolf story where it's like coming through the like waist high grass and she can see it like kind of like a raptor coming through the grass.
Speaker 2:You know the brush was. It was like all that little, like pea pine, so not real tall but, they.
Speaker 2:the brush was probably probably about two, three feet, so they were just like slinkies just going through the brush. You can really see the brush moving. They were going that sneaky. Oh, it was especially the ones behind me. At one point I looked over my shoulder and one of them was, oh shoot, I bet you within 10 yards of me and stuff. And I just sat behind the tree like, okay, if it's coming any closer I'm going to jump around and shoot it. But I was kind of too worried about turning it around.
Speaker 1:Now I know in Idaho you can hunt and you can trap wolves. Is it just like everybody gets a tag or did you actually just like happen to have a tag that year?
Speaker 2:I buy a tag every year. Okay, just never know and stuff. There's guys I know like trapping guy had 20 of them trapped by December last year.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I hear real hard to trap.
Speaker 1:That's impressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah that that guy. He slain him. Yeah, it's pretty impressive what. And he averages like 20 wolves a year and he just lays on that's crazy man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Join the Foundation for wildlife. You get paid to hunt them too. Up to like 1500 bucks a wolf, Wow. You get to keep them and yeah.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool, that's. I'm too scared of that kind of stuff like that. Uh, zach Hansen, who was on the podcast, he just he's trying to figure out how to trap wolves, but he sent me some videos after the podcast of guys who had actually trapped mountain lions in their wolf traps and you got a, you got to release them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure a couple yeah and that is some gnarly stuff.
Speaker 1:If you, I'm sure there's something on youtube, but like people on on the pot listening right now, check out People releasing trapped mountain lions from wolf traps on youtube.
Speaker 2:I would rather mess with a badger In a foam booth than a cougar in a trap.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, and they got, and they got to do it that you're required by law To get that out of there and yep, oh no, thanks, man no thanks, yeah insane. Yeah, I actually was told I couldn't share that because he got it from somebody else, but maybe I'll reach out to him again and see if I can share that podcast or that that video, on my instagram, because it was yeah, there's a couple I've seen on on youtube that the guys are releasing.
Speaker 2:I mean I want to see like Montana, or maybe even colorado, new Mexico, somewhere down in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you got to check your traps all the time. So these are they're checking their trap at like 5 am. So they're like going out wrestling a mountain lion and then releasing it and then going to their regular day jobs, like by seven. It's crazy shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, I got big balls. I don't think I got that big of balls. Nope, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might. I don't know if I take the poaching or if there's a ticket. Maybe if it was gonna stop me from hunting and poaching, I'd probably try and see yeah, either way. Good thing I don't have to worry about that. Yeah, but let's, uh, eric, what do you got give me? Give us another story, man. That was a good one.
Speaker 2:I love wolf stories they always freak me out a little bit. Oh, the next one. It's one I still can't believe it happened. So this three years ago, bear hunting and I got, oh I don't know, like 12 bears on my camera, a bunch of sows with cubs. And we go up bear hunting and Driving up there in my pickup and get up to where my bait is and look in the back and my tailgate fell down, so my bait Gone, okay. So my wife said, hey, I'll go get it. You got the tag, go sit in the bait. I said, okay, cool, she's like. You want your phone. I'm like, no, nothing's gonna happen. So she leaves and I walk into the bait and I'm sitting there and Five minutes maybe, happened to look down right underneath my uh tree stand and here comes a tan bear cup that springs bear cup.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, where's mama? And it goes to the bait and it's eaten and it kind of walks back towards my tree stand and my pickup pulls up and my wife is getting there. Well, the bear decides to climb the tree with me in the tree stand on the same tree, and it stops right, I mean right there at my face, probably a foot away. So I lean forward and it. It looks, yeah, it looks back towards the pickup. My wife gets out, slams the door and I'm sitting there and I don't know what. What went through my head? But I decided, hey, let's pet the bear cub real quick.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, why not? So I pet the bear cub and it climbs the tree right at that and like it looks at me before it's above you. It was right there by my face when I know.
Speaker 1:But after you pet it you said it climbed the tree. Did it go farther up above you?
Speaker 2:So when I but before it climbed the tree, it looked at me like a dog, looks at you when you're making a noise and tilts his head Like what the fuck did you just do? Well, it looked at me like that, like Uh, what the hell. So it climbs the tree, my wife walks in and I'm thinking, okay, where's mama? Because the last thing I want is the sow in there, with my wife on the ground walking in. So I'm pull my pistol. I'm looking no sow anywhere to be seen. So it comes in and I'm like, hey, babe, look above me. She looks above me and there's a bear cub above me. About that time that little stinker started pissing on me. Oh yeah, yeah, everybody decides to laugh when I tell that who knows how many guys you know that's been peed on by a stinkin bear cub.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, one as of today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we go and I climb down and we leave and I I can send you pictures and stuff On facebook showing these two standing in the tree, stand with the bear cub above me. And of course I forgot my phone so I couldn't record the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we leave, we rebate and leave and come back that night and the bear cub is still there. It ate, it would go, take a nap, come, go back and eat. And we're sitting there and another bear cub of the same size Shows up and they're standing and I got videos of this I can send you. They're standing up looking at each other and Everything, and so we're sitting there and the bear cub walks underneath the bait again or underneath the tree stand again, and it and I was spitting at you coping hanging, so I was spitting right there. Well, it decides to rub in the two spit.
Speaker 2:Of course and it yeah, it's rubbing. Well it must have hurt something. Well, it climbed the tree, probably I don't know two or three feet Up the tree and I'm you can hear me saying, no, don't do it. Well, there's a. It bites the limb off, like oh, I'm a big tough bear, but yeah it, it was crazy. It stayed there for Probably two or three days that we were hunting and to this day, every year it came back. No way they'll alive, yep, and it's eating right, I haven't shot yet my wife won't let me do it.
Speaker 2:But the root thing did she name it?
Speaker 1:Is that why it's just when you name it? Yep.
Speaker 2:Name it mohawk because it's tan. It's got dark legs, dark head. The body is tan and then down, its spine is dark, brown, beautiful bear. Beautiful bear and but she said, no, I can't shoot it yet, which Give it a couple more years and I'll shoot it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was gonna ask like what is her qualification for when you can shoot it? I know she's there, she can ask her, if yeah.
Speaker 2:So last year I said you know what, if it comes in, I'm gonna shoot it. She was like no, you can't do it. And I said, oh, I'm gonna do it. And she's like, no, you're not. If you do, it's a divorce. I was like, okay, then she's like next year you can shoot it.
Speaker 1:I was like all right, but I I ended up not shooting it so how old? Is this bear? Now, if it was a cub, how long ago was this?
Speaker 2:Uh, three years ago, so it's a three-year-old, okay so it's legal. Yeah but, uh, I want her genetics to stay. To stay there, because she's a beautiful bear.
Speaker 2:Yeah but the weird thing is and on my truck cam I got picture of that cub, the black cub, and a chocolate, a dark chocolate cub, with a sow for a week straight and then no more south. So I don't know, it's so much shorter or I've talked to game mornings and stuff and other bear hunters and they said that sometimes the, the souths will just dry up. So I don't, I don't know, it's weird.
Speaker 1:Dude bears are a crazy species. The fact that the the, the male bears, just will like Destroy baby bears to try to get the sow to go back into heat and it's crazy. Like you know, teddy bears give them a really good rap.
Speaker 2:Bears are Metal as a dish there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't care. They do not care. That's why I think I like hunting them so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I have a bear tag this year, so I'm I've already told you I'm going with some pretty esteemed elk hunters, feeling pretty confident. Hopefully I don't. I'm crossing my fingers because I don't want to get too confident, but I'm hoping to put a bear down this year. In fact, by the time this episode comes out I'll be maybe even done elk hunting. But then my plan is to just sit that carcass and hope a bear comes by.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you can't.
Speaker 1:You can't bait in Colorado, but you can.
Speaker 2:You can't sit over a carcass. Yeah the gup. Oh yeah, and you know that's my goal. They need to put on so much weight before winter time that they're gonna eat anything easy. Yep and I don't know how the bears are down in colorado, but it could be really good.
Speaker 1:I've seen some big bears, and you know this is a rumor, don't hold me to it, but I've heard that the grizzlies have already entered Colorado.
Speaker 2:I've heard that.
Speaker 1:I've heard it from a game warden, I've heard it from other hunters that they've seen those kind of things and, that being said, no one only wants to own up to it, because I think there's a lot of paperwork involved Of course of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know they start shutting stuff down, like up where I hunt. They've shut one whole area down because they saw grizzlies up in there. Yeah so, once that happens, no baiting, no, no, nothing.
Speaker 1:You know, I believe it, man yeah.
Speaker 2:I had fishing game. Tell me if you see him, don't say anything. Yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, their job a lot harder. Um, yeah, yeah, Eric man, that's where it's great, and I'm glad I'm proud to know someone who got pissed on by a baby bear.
Speaker 2:Thanks, I so mine. You know I've seen videos of like on Internet and stuff, like bears climbing into tree stands and I was like, oh, that would never happen to me. Or oh, bears in there, why they're baiting. And the next year we had a big old pumpkin head. Why are we going to bait standing just watching us? And I'm like I know I would never in a hundred million years think that would ever happen to me. Yeah, but it is so, your wife there with all those bears, if so your wife's a very brave woman.
Speaker 1:I don't know if she can hear me, she's a very brave woman.
Speaker 2:My wife. She's uh, nothing to do with bears. Well, the next story I got, she's even braver.
Speaker 1:Let's go.
Speaker 2:All right. So a couple of all this. I don't know, four years ago probably, um buddy of mine where I was working, he came in Co-worker and he came, became good buddies and he decided he won't come up and go and go elk hunting with me. Sure, yeah, let's go. So he brings a buddy up and we're going and it's just, it's a shit show. We're, you know, elk hunting. You're supposed to be quiet. We're not quiet, we're laughing, just having a good time. And that's what it's all about. Making memories Don't care anything, just having fun.
Speaker 2:We go this one area in the day before I got on elk and couldn't get a shot off, and all right, that's cool, we'll go up there, all four of us and see what we can do. And we're joking around walking down a road and I'm just not being real quiet. Turn around to walk back in their fresh elk tracks right across the road and we're like Shit, maybe we should have been a little quieter. Fresh bear tracks, a couple wolf tracks, and we're just like this is Bullshit, but it happens Well. So you go up this one area and we walk down it, probably mile mile on, happen Walking back and my wife is like hey, I gotta go to the bathroom. I'm like all right, cool, so my buddy and his buddy keep walking and my wife's Going to the bathroom and she's like, hey, babe, I'm like yeah, she's like there's a wolf watching me. I went, cool, wait what? She's like yeah, there's a wolf. I'm like shoot it. And she's like kind of can't right now, kind of busy.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a, that's a bad attitude.
Speaker 2:Exactly right. I know she's not a team player.
Speaker 2:Yeah so, uh, I'm like, okay. So I start walking back and I pull my pistol. And she gets done, going to bathroom, comes up on the road and she pulls her Pistol, my buddy and his buddy looking like they never pulled a pistol unless there's something wrong. So they pull their pistols. We're walking up to him and we're talking and telling them what happened and my buddy's buddy is like is it, was it that guy right there? We're like what the hell? Here's a wolf just watching us In the trees down on a down log and it's going back and forth around but of the log and I'm like huh, yep.
Speaker 2:So we're walking back and you can hear a walking Stop and it's getting dark and it's just going back forth and I'm trying to get a shout off on it with my pistol. I'm like I have my rifle here, let's see what I can do. So do it. And about five minutes later it presents a shot to me. So I I smoked it, shot it. About that time the whole hillside just erupted with wolves and it's dark and we have a mile walk back, still give or take to the side by side and my buddy Leenlin he's like so you're gonna go up and get it. I'm like I'm not going up there right now. Screw that dark pack of wolves. Yeah, no, not happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we leave and we come back the next day. Look in the body, the wolf body just destroyed. Though the pack just ate it up, because that's what they'll do. If it's slowing the pack down, they'll kill it. So I don't know if I really got a good shot off. I know I hit it because you heard the thwack.
Speaker 2:Yeah but I wasn't going up there that evening and so we leave and the next day we Go up and take a look around and nothing, and decided to take another area where there's a lot of wolf sign but a lot of elk sign, right on the Montana Idaho board. And we're going down and we're seeing wolf tracks just left and right. I mean the whole road is just full of wolf tracks. No vehicle tracks were the first ones in there about two inches of snow. So we get to an area and Stop and we were.
Speaker 2:I have a pioneer on a pioneer five-seater, so we got the seats inside and it's enclosed, except for the back. So there's two people riding in the back. Yeah, so we're sitting there trying to warm up and my buddy's buddy is like, hey, two old just jumped the road. Okay, let's go. So we walk up there and I'm howling and nothing. They're talking. We're talking back and forth and I'm howling, the wolves are howling back, but they're just hung up in the trees, can't get them to come to us. So I'm like, well, how long do we want to wait? We wait half hour or so an hour, and Trying to get them to come in, just doing everything I can think of doing predator calls call out. My hand calls started calling on that, just trying to get them to come in to present a shot. For anybody, we don't care, we just want one to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah so All right, so we leave, and it's so cold. So there's four of us in the front of this side-by-side I'm driving, my wife next to me, my buddy's next to him, to my wife, and then my buddy's buddy is sitting on my buddy's lap Shit show yeah we're going and we get almost back to camp, like maybe a mile from the cabin and a wolf's running down the road.
Speaker 2:So Put in park. I jump out, my wife sits there, my buddy's buddy jumps out. My buddy jumps out and Right on his ass, his legs are asleep Right on his ass and the wolf turns and looks at us Like what shit show just showed up to this party.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So my buddy's trying to fumble around, trying to get his legs to work again. Finally he does and we're laughing and this wolf just cut casually, just goes up the side of the road and then climbs the bank and Not like really runs off until we start going towards it. Then it takes off, but the whole time it's just walking. We're laughing so hard we can't Get a shot off because we're laughing at my buddy who fell on his ass with a loaded rifle off safety. Oh yeah, that could have been bad. Luckily I pointed anywhere to anybody. But oh god, it was funny, a damn thing.
Speaker 2:I bet we leave, we go back there's no shot go back to the camp and just start laughing the whole time. That whole weekend was Out of. We were up there for like six days. One animal got killed and that was a deer that I shot after I'm running around the side by side Trying to find it. Could my wife's like it's right there, I couldn't see it, she could, I couldn't. I should just have her shoot it for me. But More. It was a total shit show from the beginning. No animals except for that deer was harmed in that whole weekend.
Speaker 1:That's funny, man. That's funny. Another story who was it? He got run over. He was mule deer hunting and he was trying using this backseat of the car and he tried to Jump out while his buddy was still driving. It was Armando Martinez, and the wheel caught his boot and drove over his foot as threw him to the ground as he was. She has it going after this mule deer. But then if it drove over him, he sat up. The mule deer was still there, so he pulled his rifle up and he got it.
Speaker 2:That is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not many people have been hit by a car and killed a deer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 1:I Awesome stories.
Speaker 2:It's funny when I tell that story and everyone's like you you should wife for bait. I'm like, well, not on purpose, but why not? Yeah, oh yeah, that's pretty good man, you, you ask her a shield, she'll be like, oh yeah, all the time. So anytime you say, hey, let's go kind of hunting a wolf hunting, it's like, hey, baby, you want to be bait for me, there you go. Then she says some words I can't say on here, oh, she's like I'm gonna run off with that other bear. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got more perfect.
Speaker 2:So my uh Last year, so okay, so my last. Last year my wife got her first bear and her deer last year killed them awesome.
Speaker 2:So, but before that, probably I Don't know a month or two, I go up sitting in the tree stand by myself and I'm sitting there and it's getting dark and I hear a cougar scream down in the draw and now, at first I could hardly hear it, so I didn't know what it was and stuff. Then it got close. I'm like, oh, I hear it. Well, my tree stand is on a huge red fur and then there's another red fur behind it that's even bigger. So it's like nine o'clock June, early July. I Get ready to climb down. I'm halfway down my ladder and his screams right behind that second red fur. So back up the tree stand I go and I'm sitting there and at this point I'm getting pretty pissed off because it's dark. You really don't want to be walking on the ground with a cougar screaming right there. And I'm like I have a better chance up in the tree stand. It's one way up Instead of on the ground. It can come anywhere. So I'm sitting there and finally I just got pissed off enough. I just okay, I'm getting out of this tree stand. If you want to get me, you're gonna have a fight.
Speaker 2:Got a flashlight, turn the flashlight on, pull my pistol. Walk out. I got 100 yards. Maybe walk to my pickup. The whole way it's screaming in the trees Flash. My flashlight can't see it.
Speaker 1:Get to my truck. It's probably better than seeing like the eyes right that just glow yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd rather not see the eyes than see this, but go ahead, better it gets, it gets a lot better. So.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:Leave. Come back the next day thinking, oh it moved on, no big deal. Well, when you walk into my bear bait, a bunch of trees fell from that winter so I had to walk over a couple trees. Instead of clearing them out, I just left them. So I climb up there and I'm sitting there, couple, couple cubs, young bears come in, a sal and a cub come in. So I'm just sitting watching. Alright time to leave. I get down, start walking out.
Speaker 2:I stepped over this white fur that was down as I step over. I looked down and there's three cougar kittens Right there and I went, oh shit. So I turned around to look to where I came and through the bushes as a little meadow to the left of my Bear bait, in my stand here came the cougar piss off, just full of rage, came out coming at me. So I step over the cubs and or the kittens and start hey, I'm not gonna hurt them. Start backing away, pull my pistol. I'm backing away, backing away, and she stops at the kittens and she just watches me and I walking kind of sideways backwards so I can see where I'm going, but still watching her and she takes a few steps and nothing. I thought, okay, she's gonna stay with her kittens, I'm good to go.
Speaker 2:Get out by the road and there's about a three, three and a half four foot drop off under the main road. So I jumped down, turn and at that time here she came again. I pulled my pistol up and right before they, like cougars, pounce, they kind of go down like springs in their legs to jump. Well, she was right there and one of the kittens made a noise how far?
Speaker 1:how far do you think?
Speaker 2:Um Well, from when she turned around, the enemy pistol barrel to her nose was seven and a half eight inches.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right there, she was ready to pounce and that kitten Squealed or fired or did something and she just turned around and walked away. Oh, my God sitting there, finger on the trigger, ready to pull the trigger on her, and I'm yelling at her like I don't want to kill you. You have kittens, go with your kittens. I've got back to the pickup. I had to check myself and I will be a man to a man. I pissed myself a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I would.
Speaker 2:I'm worried about you man like you really have so many close calls. Something doesn't work out and you've you've got a lot of close call. No, I've. We've had a lot of stupid close calls Like what am why? But get back from the tip of your gun to the tip of my pistol to the front of her head and why she didn't it jump. That kitten saved my life.
Speaker 1:Oh man, it was breather after this story.
Speaker 2:Absolutely insane. My sister and Browell, all were back at camp and I got back and I'm I was still shaking I bet my face is just white and they're like what the hell happened, told them, and they're like, no, I'm like, yeah, it was. Oh, it was the scariest thing I've ever had happen to me in the woods. It was absolutely.
Speaker 1:I don't doubt it, man.
Speaker 2:It's hard to get scared in that. Yeah, that's you with the cougar. Yeah, but we've never. That's really the only time I've ever had an issue with the cook, with the cat. I've seen him in the woods, but that was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1:No, thanks, I'm really insane. Yeah, I know I would, I would, I would have cracked myself like, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2:I when I got back to the pick up I had to check myself both. Yeah, I was like, and I. I sat there for probably 20 minutes just trying to calm down and I never take alcohol with me. I had a beer in the in the pickup and I'll admit I drank it. I had, oh, it was. It was freaky. For Weeks I, I, every time I closed my eyes I'd have that cougar right there. And I'm like why didn't I shoot it?
Speaker 1:Before you went back in the woods 12 hours.
Speaker 2:No, next morning. Yeah, I'm gonna ride back to the bait because I had a monster bear coming in, just a tank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm sure you went a different route. Probably it didn't involve you stepping over kittens, right?
Speaker 2:No, I actually cut that log out.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, yeah. I to this day. Sometimes I close my eyes and just think about it. All I see is that cougar, and why I didn't shoot it. I have no clue what. And those kittens? They were adorable too, but they were so small.
Speaker 1:Precious, but yeah, the killing machines exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was absolutely insane that one. Yeah, I ended up having to call my wife, like you will not believe just what happened and stuff. And we've seen cougars up in that area. I got a buddy who baits up there too that has had him on his bait and had the kittens and that female on his bait a week later and yeah, yeah, and he's only well, at that time he was like a half a mile from my bait and yeah, he had him, he had no bears, he had the cougars, that's so insane man, absolutely Well.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you're still with us, eric, because if you're telling me that story and not telling me. If this was somebody else's story, I wouldn't believe that that person was still alive right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know how I did. I definitely had someone looking out for me, that's for damn sure. I think so. That or the cat knew my wife and thought well, if I end up hurting him, I'm going to have her after me.
Speaker 1:So who knows? Well, maybe, just maybe she got close enough and you smelled too much like bear piss and she let you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's crazy. I can't believe that. That's a crazy story of full grown cougar actually coming after somebody. But what else you got, man? What was the next time? You almost died. Um, and I'm kidding, tell whatever story you want.
Speaker 2:I don't think I got any more life-threatening stories. That's okay.
Speaker 1:You've given us more than the average person could.
Speaker 2:Well, a cool one actually happened this year. So my nephew passed Hunter Safety and got his Hunter Safety card and I told him if he did it, his first animal, I'll get him a bear. And last year he helped me pack bait in the barrel. In this year he worked his day and tail off and I was like, okay, let's get you a bear. So first weekend that he's up there to hunt we go in and I'm like, all right, we're in the tree stand. I'm kind of telling them what to look for, what to shoot, just everything, like you would a new hunter on deer. Just hey, calm down, control your breathing sound cub come in. And the sound cub we could have shot the sow. She was huge, the cub was big. Ethically I was like, no, don't do that. Ethically, it's not right. Yes, it's legal, we could have. And he is shaking, the whole tree stand is just shaking and I'm like Cooper, you got to calm down. I said you're not going to shoot it, but practice getting the rifle ready, looking through your scope, and I'm telling them what to aim for and everything. And he's like, all right, cool. So we leave and he's bummed. He's like I really wish I could have shot that bear. I'm like it's all right, we'll get more chances for you.
Speaker 2:So a couple of weeks go by and I killed my bear, end up killing my bear. That was over 12 years old. Wow, yeah, old, no teeth, canines all broken. So the next weekend I tell him, hey, if you can go hunting, let's go, I'll take you again, we'll go and we'll get you a bear. So bear shows up, nice brown muzzle, just beautiful bear, not huge, but a really nice first bear for the kid. And he shoots and I'm like, okay, and it ran off. And I was like all right, that's fine, it runs off. And I videotaped it and stuff. And we're walking, I'm not seeing any blood. So I slow motion the video. I'm like, oh, you pulled it, you missed his head by four inches and he was bummed. I'm like that's all right, let's go, let's sit back in the tree. We have time, it's no big deal. And he was pretty bummed and clean.
Speaker 1:This is a goodness right.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 2:No, it's not wounded, nothing like that. It was a clean miss. Shake it off, we'll do it again. So a couple weeks go by and he comes back up and I put another tree stand up. So then my wife and him are sitting in one tree stand, I'm sitting in the other, so we're all up there and nothing's coming in. It's boring as hell. And I tell him you know you sit, for you can sit for 10 hours the whole time. We're up there for five minutes of fun. It just happens. And it teaches some good patients. I'm like just practice your breathing, calm down, quit shaking. That's the big one.
Speaker 2:So a bear comes in and I'm looking at him and looking at my wife watching the bear, and from my angle the bear's coming around the barrel and he shoots. I'm like all right, cool, that bear stands up and turns. Didn't get a video with because it was so dark and the flash would scare it. So go look, no blood, no blood at all. But the way the bear jumped in rear like they, when you shoot them, they bite at the hole or whatever you do the boat, he did that, but there's no blood and we walked down, nothing. So we're like all right, we'll come back the next day and take a look. And we went up and we looked me and him and we looked probably three hours down into the canyon, probably four or 500 yards no blood at all. I know he hit it because the way it moved and stuff. But nothing, no blood, no, nothing. All right, let's forget about it. It's moved on. If he hit it, he just grazed the front of it, probably nothing. The bear might have a chest ache for a little bit. Bear will move on.
Speaker 2:So a couple of weeks go by and we're sitting there. I'm like you want to go hunting or not? He's like, well, I'm supposed to go up to my dad's. I'm like, all right, that's fine, if you want to do that, I mean you have you need to go see your dad hang out with him. But if you want to go hunting, I'm going, let's go, okay, well, he texts me that Friday morning, thursday night, friday morning, yep, I'm going hunting with you, okay, let's go. So we go up and Saturday morning we go in rebate. And we did. I baited heavy, I threw out bread. I had six things of a caramel that I threw out and molasses, and oh, I just made that a bear heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mel and sitting there and I'm like all right, well, let's go and back to camp and we'll chill out, hang out, or we can go wolf hunting and stuff. He's like, well, let's go wolf hunting. I was like okay. Then I started thinking about like maybe not a good idea taking first year hunter out that doesn't really know the ropes after the apex predator.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was like I don't know if something happens to me. But how do I explain to his mom that, oh yeah, cooper's in the woods Now is wolf shit? I don't know how I'm going to explain that one. So we just went back to camp, hung out and about four o'clock give or take five o'clock yeah, let's go back up into the bait and let's sit and see what happens. I know there was a nice real big one coming in and a nice two, three year old coming in, not huge, but for a first bear, perfect.
Speaker 2:We sit, we climb up in the tree saying we're sitting there. I'm like all right, if that big bear comes in, I'm taking the rifle from you because you can't shoot a big bear for your first bear. Sorry, you just can't do it. It's not fair. He's like all right, that's cool. So we're sitting there and a bear. He sees a bear coming up and he's like bear. I'm like all right, cool. So I video it and I'm like okay, take three breaths, calm yourself. On your third breath, fire, listen to me. He's like okay, so he takes. I hear him take three breaths and the bear is up at the bait. Well, he puts his leg back. I'm like, okay, wait, don't shoot. He's like, okay, I'm like, take three more breaths, wait till that leg is forward, and then just put the hammer down.
Speaker 2:And he did. He shot, bear runs off. I'm like, all right, cool, no big deal, it runs off, walk up to the bait pile and it is just full of blood. He blew both lungs out, the heart apart, I mean just destroyed. It, ran 30 yards and piled up. So he's sitting there. I'm like, all right, stand at the blood, I'll go look at the next blood. You come and then work that way. He's like all right, he stands up. And he's like, well, the, just a blood trail the whole way. He's like, well, you can see it right here. I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to go around in this tree just in case. Get over there, look down, there's a bear piled up. And I just point over my shoulder and got out of the way and his oh my God, I've never seen a kid so excited.
Speaker 2:He's like, finally, the weight off his shoulder. He's like, finally I got a bear after two weekends of missing. He was down. He didn't really want to go. He's like I don't know. I'm like, hey, you're not going to shoot one. If you don't go, redemption let's do it. Who knows what's going to happen. So he got that bear walked up on. Oh, he was so excited and the taxidermy bill is going to be pretty good. On that one I apologize to my sister, because now that's all he talks about and he's going to be a freshman this year and he's like I don't know if I want to play football, I think I want to get another bear tag and go. I'm like you better play football, bud, we can. We can plan a hut next year and he's planning to ask?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to ask if you think he's going to go hunting again, but it sounds like he's a lifer.
Speaker 2:He's already planned. We wanted to go for washing for you because they used to do a month for you in November. Well, it's three days now and it's when I'm gone for elk hunt. So I'm like, yeah, sorry dude, and I'm not buying you an Idaho elk tag, I'm not rich, that's not cheap. So he's already planning to put his new bait out himself next year and bait it and hunt it and I'm like good, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh the look on his face. And got out to where we got cell service. He called his mom and he called my wife and he was just ecstatic.
Speaker 1:He was so happy. It's important to do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It is. I'm excited for my kids are old enough to do that. Yeah, that's the whole thing. Like I, it was cool, I got one, but I didn't care, I wanted to get him one. And last year my wife she killed hers and she got she shot at one and weird thing and stuff and couldn't find it and Think we missed it. But the video was really blurry because I'm not good on those technology crap, so couldn't tell if she hit it cuz dust and he didn't move like he got hit. So she was bummed and then she got one and that's what it's all about. It's like I don't even care if I get another phone. I got another bear tag in my pocket stuff but it's like told my wife I'm like you need to get another bear, I don't care if I get one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she just can't shoot a color phase, cuz I've never shot a color phase yeah that's funny yeah yeah, and like I killed a bear Three years ago with a 19 and a half inch skull, just a good, just a tank, just an absolute toad. And like I, I hate Guiding the bear by the bait, but we couldn't move it. We had to get it right there and we still had a hard time moving that thing out. It was and I'll send you pictures of that guy he was and I'm, I'm five, nine, and and he was probably he's probably six and a half, maybe pushing seven foot.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:He's a toad, absolute toad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty excited to get out there and bear hunt this year. I've had bear tags and I've never really had any luck and it's always been something that I've had in my pocket because I'm Elclinting.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's like you always have. Well, hey, you want to get one? Come to Idaho.
Speaker 1:Man, you know what I might take you up on that.
Speaker 2:I'll put you on a bait.
Speaker 1:I'm super interested if I was thinking either this year going to Idaho, wyoming or maybe even British Columbia trying to bear and like for spring bear.
Speaker 2:So we'll see. Thank you, we'll talk about that later, but yeah, oh, definitely I'd. I'd be more than happy to have you on my bait.
Speaker 1:Cool man, that's, that's awesome. I Gotta ask this, though, is your are your tree stands close enough tough to use our tree or just rifle? I?
Speaker 2:am 23 yards is my bait and Perfect. I killed them with a bow, with a crossbow, so okay, but oh yeah, easy and we'll have oh Shoot. One year I think I had 15 bears in the spring on my bait and I average they're hungry spring. What's that?
Speaker 2:I said they're hungry in the spring, oh yeah and I average probably 10, 11 bears in the spring and probably 12, 13, 14 in the fall. I Found that area. It's it's gonna have stolen bears, like so. Another story a buddy of mine which I met up there, he, uh, he put a bait in and we're talking. We just drove by each other. He's like hey question Is this your bait? I'm like yeah, it is. He's like awesome. I'm like all right, cool, see ya, we tried in the next day see him. He's like yeah, look at these two bears that I had on my bait. I'm like cool, they still there. He's like no, started looking through. And I'm like a daisy. He's like you, asshole, I stole his two bears that he had and they're Tell him the twins. And they are huge, they are monsters.
Speaker 2:Yeah he's like you, jackass, and we've been friends ever since.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how it works, right? Yeah, he's, uh, he's frustrated, but he's, he's happy for you.
Speaker 2:I know I told him go sit on my bait. She went on, okay, but he hasn't done that yet.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. Well, that's cool, and that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, what are the stories got for us? Eric, I know you, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna stop you but hey man, come here. I'm glad to get the wife now.
Speaker 1:What's what's more stories.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so this one area? Totally forgot about this one.
Speaker 1:We just gotta keep you honest on this one, though, okay, oh she she is yeah, yeah she's standing there in the background about the whole podcast, shaking her finger at me. All right, perfect, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So we, uh, we go elk season a couple years ago. We're going to this one area and Road just dead ends, real brushy, and we're walking down and we hear the most God awful noise, distress. I mean, it's just Me, my wife were both. What is that noise? Nothing don't know Sit there. All sudden, here came a cow elk coming up the road or up the side of the bank with her ass eaten out and Just blood everywhere. I'm like, oh crap, there's an elk, oh crap, there's a wolf.
Speaker 1:There's crap. There's half an elk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, three quarters. I lay down and I'm sitting there and the elk is walking up through trees and I'm like, okay, if the wolf comes and stops right there it's 70 yards, 75 yards I'm gonna shoot it In there. The wolf that came up that I shot at never stopped. I just saw them across there and fired Go down, look and can't find anything, can't find the elk. Now it ran back downhill and it was Like a herd elephants going through and it was just one elk, but it was freaking. The weirdest noise I've ever heard in my life was, that's that distressed elk and her.
Speaker 1:Is that what it was? It wasn't like the wolf chewing on anything.
Speaker 2:It was no. No, because the elk was running ripped out.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so and her ass in was just eaten. That Hawks on her legs were all. You can see the tendons. She wasn't moving very fast, she was yeah, and if I could have seen her I would have put her out of her misery and salvage what.
Speaker 1:Me that could have yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not leaving for those stupid things, but uh yeah, we looked all over for blood and I know I hit it because it dropped and then got up and not ran off but kind of limped off. So I think I just gut shot at it Stuff. But it was moving so quick that If it's moving I can't hit it.
Speaker 1:So man, eric, you live in some gnarly country, man, you know what you ever want to see that country it is.
Speaker 2:It's deep and deep, but it is the most beautiful country You'll ever see.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, you know, I've been through that part of Idaho briefly Gorgeous country all over Washington, Yep. And then you got Idaho and court of lane and now you're not far from court of lane.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure. I've never really like spent time deep in the woods like hunting and doing those things, but driving through I'm like wow. Oh, yeah, yeah like if you go through, go I don't I 90 Hentanese and you go by Wallace.
Speaker 2:We're just south of Wallace.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:About 30 miles give or take, but just steep country, beautiful country, tons of animals. That fishing is amazing. Yeah, if you're, if you fly fish. So much.
Speaker 1:I'm not very good at it I mean either, but I mean you can.
Speaker 2:There's paradise for everybody. You're in a four-wheeling jeep, in Whatever, there's something for you.
Speaker 1:That's cool, that's super pretty awesome country. Yeah, well, man, this has been a lot of fun. Do you have more stories for us? Cuz I always say this every time, I'm not gonna cut you off. I'll listen to stories all night long. But that being said, yes, okay, your eyes just got big, let's go.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is gonna make a lot of your listeners, man, but I'm not a huge L car, I'm a predator hunter. I love. That's what I would rather do over anything. It's just something about that, something that can kill you. I like to hunt, so I'd love to go to Kodak Island. Grab a bear, get a brown bear with a bow that's my dream.
Speaker 1:You've been, that's oh, bro, I'm not interested in that kind of shit.
Speaker 2:Oh, good for you, man, I dream about that stuff.
Speaker 1:So watch you from far away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks. Can I trust you with the big rifle to back me up?
Speaker 1:Well, sure. Yeah, we'll get a couple people in there, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:I actually got a one good story and then one quick story, just remember.
Speaker 2:But, uh, so we're down in the blue mountains, if you know that country down by walla walla okay and we're bear hunting fall and we're sitting there and the elk are bugling till 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. No sleep, pissing me off because I'm not getting sleep. And they're less than a hundred yards from us probably, and they're just bugling left and right. Had a side-by-side up on a trailer and Probably about two, three o'clock in the morning I hear Er on the trailer and we're in a tent, me, my wife, and we're like what the hell is that? Something's on the trailer. So we're like, well, should we look? I'm like nah, who cares, the side by side, it's tied down, no big deal. We get up the next morning and my side by side it's still there. My tie down on the back of my side by side is gone, it is gone. So whatever was on that trailer took my stinking tie down strap for the side by side.
Speaker 2:Okay yeah, oh yeah. So we're hunting and nothing, nothing. And come back and we're sitting there, we got a little fire going and all of a sudden we hear something running through the trees Just antlers hitting, and can't see. We forgot flashlights, so have a little lantern. We're looking, we're like can't see anything, no big deal, whatever. So we're laying there and Go to bed and the next morning probably oh Shoot, I don't know five, five o'clock, just when it's getting light out, we hear behind us a deep breathing. We're like what the hell is that? I'm just a little bit unzipped and look out there's a stinking cow, a moo, moo cow.
Speaker 2:Okay sitting behind us breathing and it's noses like touching the tent. It's like you scared the living shit out of us and stuff. Well, what we didn't know is A guy that runs cows up there in the summer had salt lakes all around where we put the camp and we never saw them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we had cows all around camp. So we decide to go down this one area to hunt behind a gate and it's a long draw and we're sitting there and it's getting dark and we hear the most god-awful screen, something. No clue what it is and I'm not one of those, okay, whatever, I've heard things in the woods that I can't explain, and this is one of those noises. And we had a mile hike back in the dark with this thing screaming and it's a clear Draw. I mean, you can see a thousand yards.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it burnt a few years ago. So there was no trees, no brush. The only brush that it was was we were sitting right next to the brush and it was down to my right probably 50 yards, but we saw no animals, saw nothing. And this was the most god-awful screen growl. I Don't know what it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have no clue what it was and we heard it all night long, practically probably till about one or two in the morning, and you could just barely hear it and the coyotes howling, and Then coyotes just shut up. Don't know what it was. Still don't know what it was to this day. Me, my wife will talk about and we're just like Wonder what that was. Yeah no clue, freaking cream man.
Speaker 1:I've uh, so I've my my over-the-counter elk spot in Colorado. There's salt lakes all over the place and there's a bunch of cattle. In fact, we've been there when the cowboys come and actually heard the cattle.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's. It's a crazy, crazy experience, but cows make some weird, weird noises. Oh yeah, I had to guess just based on the scenario you gave me. There I've heard some noises where I'm like what the hell is that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, make sure it's a cow.
Speaker 1:Just making not. Cows can more than move, that's all yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I and my wife grew up on a cattle ranch and she's like I don't know what that was.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I weirdest thinking thing I've ever heard in my life and to this day I hear noises like there's nothing like that Was like that in the blues, I don't know what. It was absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, well, hopefully maybe it was you know, or Chupa Cabra, you know, just coming up for the border?
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, I might have just got stung by a scorpion.
Speaker 2:Oh nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ow, that's a new one. I got me on the foot. I don't know what it was, but okay, you said you had one quick one, go ahead. I got stung by scorpion.
Speaker 2:That's, that's awesome. So the Last one. I got just a quick one.
Speaker 1:Quick break from your story. Real quick I got we were in Colorado for last month came back. My office is a weird room off the garage and it was filled with these things. Holy shit and the listeners, I'm showing a scorpion right now. No, this is actually a pretty good one, pretty good.
Speaker 2:But yeah, they eat it, Thailand right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like you got to do something to it. Either way, it got me. Are those poisonous? In Poisonous means, if you eat it you'll die, so they might be venomous. Venomous, right, maybe, I think. I think the bigger or the smaller they are, they're like more painful, but I don't think you're gonna die.
Speaker 2:Well, if your leg falls off in the morning, you'll know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, damn dude that's a, that's a dead scorpion right there. Okay, that's a continue that gives me the heebie-jeebies now. Yeah, well, coming from the guy who's like facing off of mountain, mountain lions, and that's fine, I'll take those all day long snakes, scorpions, nope yeah. Well, you have one more. I interrupted you to show you my little dead scorpion.
Speaker 2:Oh that, no, no problem. So the last one. I got just a quick one. Last year I killed a bear and I built a 450 so-com. They built it for the military, for checkpoints, to shoot through engines. Cool, let's take a bear hunt. Bear pops up and I will send you the video on this.
Speaker 2:Yeah bear should walks up and I got about an eight inch log Lane in the bait he's laying down by that log. I decide, okay, I'm gonna shoot this bear. I shoot the bear, cool great. I shot through the log first and Hit the bear. I Shot through eight inch log With the 458 400 grain bullet through that log right in the middle and went out.
Speaker 1:Both shoulders Broke, both shoulders just blew it shoulders apart and this is 23 yards, though, right, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to tell that one like that's a pretty much my wife's like. I think that's the wrong, wrong caliber to use for bear. I'm like it worked. I know if I have to shoot through a tree It'll work. Got to pick some sawdust out of the bear meat, but exactly. It just got on the hide. Nothing on the meat, though, but yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:That's good. Yeah, that's crazy. Man Well, Eric man this was a lot of fun. It was a shit show and I'm worried for you. You got a little too many close calls. Yeah, just you know, check in with me occasionally, I want to make sure you're doing okay, I don't want you getting eaten by anything. I just want you to live a happy, long life. Oh yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 2:Well, this is cool, I great stories.
Speaker 1:First time podcasts have ever been sung by Scorpion, on which is hey, it's the first for everything, my first podcast ever.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you're your first podcast.
Speaker 1:You did awesome man, so thank you for one reaching out to me, because I do appreciate that I to say it all the time some of my favorite stories and yours did not disappoint by any means our listeners stories.
Speaker 2:Well, I got more, so we might have to do a part two sometime, Hell yeah hell, yeah, maybe we'll.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty serious about that. I'm pretty serious about coming up and hunting, so maybe you're more than welcome we got a cabin, we got beer, we got whiskey, food.
Speaker 2:I'll take all four of those things. So alright, man. Well, why?
Speaker 1:don't we tell the people where they can find you If you want them to? Yeah, I just have Facebook.
Speaker 2:I don't have anything else I don't even know what my Facebook page is so Perfect.
Speaker 1:I'll figure out what it is. I'll put a link to it. So if someone wants to follow Eric, I'm sure he's putting up some crazy stories and videos on his. Yeah, we're gonna start.
Speaker 2:I think we talk of maybe filming more and putting them out and kind of doing our crazy shit and Putting it out on videos and stuff. So me and the wife been toying with that idea and That'd be pretty cool, man, I found that. You let me know because I'd love to share it with the folks out there.
Speaker 1:It sounds something like you have some pretty crazy shit. Whether or not you're talking about it, you have some pretty crazy shit.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll send you a lot of videos. Awesome, awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool man. Well, thanks again, Eric man, I appreciate it. Thank you to your wife. I don't know if she can hear me or not. Oh yeah, she's standing right here letting me have your time and, hopefully, hopefully, she, uh, she checked the truth to all of these and and you, know, yeah, she does 100%.
Speaker 2:She's been there with most of most, all of them. So.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. Well, Eric, thank you, man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thanks, buddy. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course, All right guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books.
Speaker 1:I want to thank Eric for coming on the podcast for reaching out to me in the first place and being patient enough For me to actually find that message and get back to him. Hopefully he enjoyed telling his stories as much as I did hearing them. There was an adventure from the start, with his wolves and his cougars, to my scorpion at the end. So thank you, guys for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. Eric, thank you for telling your stories. Uh, quick reminder share the podcast with at least one friend today, um, and then, if you have any great stories, make sure you reach out to me so that we can get an episode together and you can tell everybody your crazy stories. Um, beyond that, make sure to give us a review on whatever you're listening to and get out there, guys, and make some stories of your own. Thank you.