In this episode, James transports us on an adventure alongside him in his relentless pursuit of a buck with a unique antler configuration. His detailed narratives, from the initial sighting to the unexpected escape of the buck, create a vivid imagery of the open terrain and the thrill of the chase. But James' hunting tales don't stop there. He introduces us to the world of hunting javelina, and shares an astonishing encounter with a giant javelina in the wild - a moment that left him fascinated and hungry for more.
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Bow Disciples
The Hunting Stories Podcast
https://linktr.ee/bowdisciples
In this episode, James transports us on an adventure alongside him in his relentless pursuit of a buck with a unique antler configuration. His detailed narratives, from the initial sighting to the unexpected escape of the buck, create a vivid imagery of the open terrain and the thrill of the chase. But James' hunting tales don't stop there. He introduces us to the world of hunting javelina, and shares an astonishing encounter with a giant javelina in the wild - a moment that left him fascinated and hungry for more.
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Bow Disciples
The Hunting Stories Podcast
https://linktr.ee/bowdisciples
Howdy folks and welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and as usual, we got another good one for you today. Today we got someone that I've actually been following on YouTube for quite a while, saw him in person and was like man, I probably shouldn't introduce myself in retrospect. I definitely should have Either way. Super nice guy.
Speaker 1:Today we have James Visser on the podcast for you. He is with Bo Disciples, if you're familiar with them. Just a fun guy. He does great content. It's all about learning, which obviously you know I'm not necessarily interested in. I want to have a little bit of fun and his content is a lot of fun. So I want to thank James, of course, for coming on the podcast. If you guys haven't checked out Bo Disciples, please do. Links to everything you need to know are in the show notes. But beyond that, guys, thank you for tuning in. Let's just go ahead and kick this thing off. I don't want to beat around the bush anymore. Let's let us tell you some of his stories. All right, james. Welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Brother, how are you? Great man?
Speaker 2:Appreciate you having me on Been excited to do this since you reached out a little while ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I've been thinking about getting you on here ever since I thought I saw you at the San Antonio attack and I do believe it was you. I just I don't know I got the jitters and like, no, I'm gonna do a thing, I'm just gonna let us do a thing. So thank you for coming on, man. It's exciting to meet you and I'm excited to hear some stories from you today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, man. Yes, again, thanks for having me. I saw you got your uncle Ted on recently. That's pretty cool. Congrats on that.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man, ted, he's a character man, he's you got to let Ted just do what Ted does. I was like let's talk about stories, and he's like let's talk about politics. And so there's a roller coaster of emotions for that episode, but it was a lot of fun, cool. But yeah, hey, why don't we, why don't we kick this thing off right? Why don't we let you introduce yourself to the folks so they know who they're hearing some stories from today.
Speaker 2:Yes, my name is James, james Bisser and, like, like Michael was saying, yeah, I've done YouTube for about five years now. I've been a hunter my bow hunter my whole life pretty much shot my first rabbit with a bow I was five years old and been doing it ever since. Think I got my first deer not too much later. So been doing it a long time and it's definitely something I'm passionate about and it's just what I was raised doing and you know especially archery like I had a bow in my hand that I would always play around with when I was like two or three and it just have always done it. So started making in a boat. I always have made videos, but I made biking videos, then real estate videos. Now I was like it just makes sense to film what I've always done too. So we started doing the hunting and archery videos in 2018 and nobody watched for a long time and then all of a sudden, you know now we have pretty big audience in the space, so pretty cool. But that's about it.
Speaker 1:I have a four year old and I got a bow in his hands but he struggles. Hit like a four foot by eight foot block of hay how you hit a rabbit at five man, that's, that's pretty special. Yeah, appreciate that. Yeah, cool man. Well, yeah. So, bow disciples, like I said, I've been watching your stuff for a while and that's why I recognize you in San Antonio. It's it's, it's not the normal, like hey, just check this out. You guys have a lot of fun, which is what I appreciate. I'd rather watch somebody just having a good time in trying to put together their special content. Not that your content isn't special, yeah yeah, yeah, you obviously have a great time.
Speaker 1:I like watching you shoot cards and all the, all the different stuff. So yeah, it's super cool yeah but we'll get a little bit more to that maybe at the end, but for now we're here to hear your stories, man, so why don't you set the stage for for the first story? I know you said you got a good mule deer story for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I got a, I got a. I got a good one. So, as a lot of people know, mule deer hunting is my favorite spot in stock, especially in like the desert terrain. And on this shirt I'm going to tell a story of this buck right here on one of our shirts. These are also that can't get them, but that's the bikini buck right there. It's a super, non typical crazy buck. And how? The story of a start from the beginning.
Speaker 2:There's this one glassing spot I love to glass from, and some years is better than others. This one year in particular it was. It was good. So what? I got there in the dark in the mornings. I have these 25 power binoculars that are like this big, and then I got seven powers. Most of the time I'm on the tripod with the sevens, while some looking really far or need to see what something is, I'll pull out those 25 25. So this morning I'm glassing and it's kind of this amphitheater. There's like mountains, like this, but then there's like this flat section down in the bottom. This is a January hunt, so these bucks are in the rut for California or where you hunt. This is in Arizona, arizona, this is in Arizona. So these bucks are in the rut.
Speaker 2:And in the morning I'm glassing and I, you know, every day I would see certain bucks you see every day, and I really hadn't dug out like a real, like wopper yet and I was looking and I've always really had a thing for like weird, not typical bucks as well and I, if you look at a lot of my bucks, a lot of them are like weird.
Speaker 2:So this day I'm glassing and there's like some thick bushes and I could see through the bushes and there was like some doze milling around and I see this like buck move. I could tell it was like super tall antlers and like tons of masks. I was like something seemed real weird with that buck. Like you know, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. So he's kind of bushes and finally walks out and I can see we's a, like I said, really big old buck, probably like seven or eight or something. There's got like baseball can mask. But then I'm like stuff I buy on the one side, typical, but I'm like the other side something is going on. I couldn't quite figure it out. I was like the only way I can find out what's going on exactly is to try to shoot this buck.
Speaker 1:It was like the coolest ever scene right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he a giant buck I'm like, without a question. So the shooter buck. You know I'm very picky with when I choose my stocks, when I choose to go, because I think Milder hunt, spot and stock in that type of terrain is like very, very difficult. It's like one of the toughest ways to hunt. So if the elements aren't right, it's it's not going to work, like so I need to pick the right time to go and then that day I can't remember if I tried to stock the buck or not.
Speaker 2:I want to say maybe I had like one route that might work. I knew it wasn't great, but it was like he down in the flats with like 10 does and up here there's like a, there's a huge mountain to his left with like cliffs, yeah, running up, and basically where he was there was no way to approach him with a good wind and any cover, unless I could scale the cliffs and kind of get up and around them and then drop, get like 180, come around them from the other side. I didn't think this would work, but I was like you know what, I can climb those cliffs and at least get up there and not spook this group, and then from there I can see if it's worth trying or if I should just find them another day and try it again. So I scale this cliff and I mean when I say a cliff I'm climbing like 20 foot vertical walls, you know like straight up and now rock climbing, and it's now it's starting to like sleep a little bit, so it's slippery. And I get up there, get in like a cliff and a rock and I could see him down there and I'm like, yeah, I don't really have much of a play here, but I'm not hurting anything. I was like maybe 175 yards.
Speaker 2:So I said I'm just going to watch these guys for a while and see what happens. So they're in this little flat spot and then there's like this ravine ditch that comes up and over away from me and I'm like, okay, if they drop into that ditch and get up over that hill, then I can drop down and I should have a pretty good setup. So they eventually mill into this little bottom ravine. I creep down this steep cliff around them and then I get down there. Now I'm like in the flats and I can see I'm ground level, but they're in a big ditch, you know big canyon, and so I post up and see them come out of the canyon, and then they crest the little hill and I go okay, this is perfect, because now they're on the backside of a hill, there's decent wind I mean good wind and it's blowing pretty good. So I know I can boogie over there and get to the top of that rise, and I should be within shooting range, is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:So I bomb down there, go through the ditch, knock the arrow, get to the top. They're all gone. I don't see any of them and I'm like what in the heck happened here, cause I knew I didn't spook them. So I I call my dad who's glassing. I'm like what happened with these deer? He goes oh well the buck. All of a sudden another smaller buck came in and he just blitzed and ran them out of the country like two miles, when then the all was left to. So my timing was just really bad. This day I finally get it to work after like hours, and then the rut. You know, sometimes the rut helps you and other times it doesn't. This was one of those cases, right?
Speaker 1:So that's funny man.
Speaker 2:I was like, all right, I still want this, but I still got to get this buck. It's like the only thing I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1:Did you get eyes on them a little bit better while you were stalking in and figure out no, not, not, really not really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could just tell something was real weird with one of the antlers, but like I couldn't exactly tell what it was. So like, all right, I gotta go find this buck again, and so I would blast from the same spot. It was to the point where I was kind of seeing him, like us seeing him like almost every day. You know, it was just a matter of if he was in a good spot, so it was one day see him again. He finally beds. This day. It's much different whether it's like real sunny and hot, so I'm they're not moving for quite they're for a while. So I'm like all right, this should pan out. I think I got this one. So I start.
Speaker 2:Stalking is very open terrain. By the way, where I'm hunting it's just like the only bushes are like this tall, so you're fully visible. So you really got to rely on having a good route, of course, good wind with muleys and being silent. So it's like it's tough and so I'm stalking in, stalking in and I'm kind of going. It's real gradual, mostly flat, kind of like gravelly ground, but it's pretty quiet. I got my sneaking shoes on and no pack, you know, just my bow. So I'm real I don't have anything on me to make noise, and I mean when I creep slow, people have stalked with me. No, I barely move. Like I cover extremely little ground, like a hundred yards and 45 minutes, you know, just got. You barely move, but it's slow.
Speaker 2:So I'm like getting there and I'm like, okay, I think I'm about in the area these deer are bedded, but it's real tough in the desert, like everything kind of looks similar and you can't see them, even though it's open if they're bedded. You got to like that's why I'm so slow. I'm like scanning like an X-ray machine, because they're so hard to see when they're bedded on the ground, like behind a cactus or whatever. So I'm like I really don't want to mess up and pass the deer. This is my biggest fear is to pass the deer and then blow it because the wind would be poor. So I'm like creeping along, looking both sides, trying to find them. And then I looked to my right and I hear something behind me. So I turn and look and sure as shit, I had passed up like four does that were bedded like 15 yards, but you just can't see them right. So they get up and I'm like dang it. Now the wind's bad and I'm like this is like when you're in panic mode a little bit, I'm like I have to find the buck.
Speaker 2:So I'm scanning so hard and the does were to my like behind me, like I'm kind of on this little like peninsula ridge and they're like this side of it, this side of it, and I look over, there he is. I see the buck bedded. I don't know how I didn't see him. He's like 55 yards or something and he drops his head. I knew he's going to get up. Obviously his other deer did. So I see his head drop, so I raise up, draw, cause that's always when deer stand up, good pro tip and drop their head, they're going to get up. So I drew panther. Depend on me, it's pretty easy.
Speaker 2:Shots like 55 yards in the open, no wind, not much wind. I let the shot go and I hear clink, clink, clink, clink and I was like did I just miss? I was like there's no way I missed, you know. I mean it just didn't make sense to me. So I watched this buck run away and he just goes and goes and goes and I'm like I don't see any blood on him. He looks fine, like how did I miss, you know. So I go look for my arrow and, honestly, I don't even remember if I found it or not. I probably did, but I don't remember and I'm like man, that really sucks. Of course, no blood sounded like a clean miss. I think I did find my arrow. There's nothing on it. And then I was like, well, that really sucks. I worked really hard to get in that position and I didn't.
Speaker 1:For whatever reason, I didn't make it happen, you know, and uh, Hindsight, you haven't gone back and been like figured it out, you're just sort of still in a little bit of mystery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had a couple of shots like that, honey, where it's like I know I made a good shot and for whatever reason, it's a, so I didn't pan out. It happens in archery, you know it just does.
Speaker 1:but uh, houdini's a good name for this guy. It sounds like Right.
Speaker 2:so here's what's crazy we I don't remember if it was the same day or maybe the next day, but we get back off at our glassing spot and no, that's not what happened. What happened was okay. So we head back and I think it was like the next day we're in our Polaris Ranger on this road and we bump into a rancher that leases some of this land for his cattle. Tons of tons of public land out here. You know it's huge. This guy rolls up to us and he goes. Hey, he goes. You guys been seeing any deer? We go. Yeah, you know, we've been seeing some. And but my kids, like, they love to couse deer. And I was like, oh okay, yeah, we're mostly hunting this mule deer country down lower, but he goes.
Speaker 2:You know, I saw the craziest thing this morning he goes. I saw this real big buck, typical five on one side and a real weird I couldn't tell different antler on the left. I was like, okay, I know what buckies talk about Because I saw him this morning. It was weird. It looked like someone tied a red ribbon from the top of his back, like on his shoulders, to under his chest. It looked like he had a red ribbon tied around him and I go, okay, I hit him right through the top of the back. You know, I must have just barely cut like the rage, must have just barely skimmed and gave him a good cut and he's bleeding down the sides. He's gonna be fine. You know this is not the lethal shot, but I'm like, okay, now I even more so, gotta finish this. You know I gotta finish this story. But you know, of course, your first chance is theoretically the best. They're gonna be the least educated.
Speaker 2:Now this buck not only been stalked, he been clipped, you know. So I'm like man, and this was like a Thursday or Friday and no one hunts like out here. No, nobody hunts this area Now, except one guy, and he only hunts the weekend. So come for the weekends and he'll hunt, but he's not always there. Any glasses from the same spot we do. Right, when he shows up, which isn't super often, but rolls around his RV, rolls in, and I'm like, dang it, you know we're gonna be on our glass and spot, and like I'm not gonna go sit up there. He only has a couple of days, I'm not gonna mess with it, but I'm like he's gonna see that buck and I go, okay, look, not trying to be a dick, but like most hunters, they'll see the bucks, but like the odds of actually getting in there and like sinking an arrow in one of these bucks like is quite low. So I'm like it should be, it should be all right, you know. So I'm like my plan is let's let this guy hunt this spot, let's go hunt a different spot for Havilina or another deer or whatever, for my dad or whatever, and then after that on Monday we'll come back and I'm gonna shoot that buck again.
Speaker 2:The weekend goes by, monday rolls around. We get up there and I'm just like I mean glassing so hard, you know, laser focused, just looking at everything, and just cannot dig this buck up, can't find him and I'm like starting to get a little concerned. And then I mean it's getting late, to the point where you know a lot of deer will start bedding. You'll see less. I'm like come on, please dig them. And I glass over to my right and there's this nice cut and all of a sudden I just like catch a glimpse of like this body walking into this ditch. I go that was him, I know, it was him, you know. But I'm like, okay, we're in the game. Now we're in the game.
Speaker 2:He's not too far, in a decent approachable spot, and he comes out and I think he ended up linking up with, like I don't know, 10 does or something. I always prefer it's less, but he had a lot this day and I'm looking at it and, again, the only way I can get to him it's like not a perfect scenario is to go way up this big mountain, go through this saddle and then, like, get on top of this like 40 foot cliff and try to, like you know, come up with a new plan, but I'd be in like, have good wind and I'd be have great vantage point. So work my way over there, get on top of the cliff and as soon as I get up there, I peek over and, like, the deer are all they're like down below me, but it's pretty far and it was windy, so I couldn't, of course, get a shot. And he's with all these does and I'm like man. The only way to stock it on him would be to drop off the cliff and then like, like stalk around the base of the cliff, but it's super rocky and steep, so it's going to be really hard to be quiet and not roll a rock or or, and you know it's going to be going to be really difficult. So I kind of watch and all of a sudden here comes another buck coming in and he does not like that. So he just darts away like a half mile. He just chases this buck out of here and I'm watching from on top of this cliff Like again this happened and again. So he darts off and I see him shoe this buck off and and then he turns around and starts coming back. But the good news is I was like it would be nice if I could stock them, just by himself, obviously. And as he's coming back, the dose I don't know if the wind eddyed a little and maybe they caught my wind for a second, I'm not sure but they move off out into the debt, the flats, and he comes back to where they were by himself now and I'm like, okay, well, I got to wait for him to bed up and unfortunately I know how it's going to go he going to follow those does out into the flats.
Speaker 2:But I think honestly, because I had clipped them with a two inch rage, I think he was a little tired, yeah, and I guess that he's old deer too. So I think he was, I think he was beat, you know, and I can see him walking. I was like, dude, that buck looks tired, you know, like he going to bed up for sure. So he's walking down below me like 200 yards and I'm like, please bed down, don't go to the dose, please bed down. And, dude, he walks and there's this little tiny knob on the side of this hill and there's like a nice gravel spot and I see him walk over there, do a spin, lay down right. And thankfully he bedded, looking straight away from where I'm going to be coming from and the wind is not going to be straight in my face, but I'll have a good like if he's over here. The wind will be cutting like this way, so I should be okay.
Speaker 2:I'm like dude, this couldn't be any better. Now I can flank this hill. It's still going to be really difficult not to roll a rock or crack too many twigs, so it's going to be hard. I got to take a lot of time to make sure I'm quiet, but I can see his head, I can see his antlers, so if he gets alert and does like this, I can just stop, you know, and he's looking away from me. I'm like it really can't get any better, Like this is perfect.
Speaker 2:So I come down off the cliff, start skirting the side and I was like I thought, when I came around the hill and saw him, like because I knew I would be able to see him again, he would be further. I come around and I'm like, oh geez, I was like 150. And I saw I have to take my pack off, put my sneak and shoes on and it is so dry. I mean I'm going across these rocks on the steep country and it sounds like there's this one plant with like these little, almost like bells on them. So every time you hit one it's like making all these like and I'm trying my best and I'm being pretty quiet the plane would fly over and I would like get a few more steps. You let that noise cover mine and I'm like, okay, going crazy slow. And I would just range him. Okay, now I'm at 80.
Speaker 2:So if he stands up, he had 80. Get more yards. Okay, now he's at 60. Now he's at 55. Now we have 45. And now he has 40, 30.
Speaker 2:So now I'm standing at 30 yards. I just see his big, big ass buck Broadside looking away from me is he's so big that I could easily shoot a real good bedded. But the problem is there's a big boulder right in front of his vitals Right, perfect, of course. So I'm like standing here at 30 yards and I'm like, all right, I'm right here, do don't blow it. You know, can't blow it. And I'm like, okay, I'm just anal. I'm looking at him. He's real calm and I'm like, okay, if I can get two steps to the right, I think I can shoot him like last rib and quarter it in. And I don't even have to run the risk of him getting up and darting Like if he sees me or hears me draw or the wind, like I can just end it right now. So I like go to take a step. I'm like right about to get where I need and I see his head go drop. I just go. He stands up, boom, let the arrow fly 30 yards broadside. I watch this back. This arrow, just you know, hit him right where I want. You know, perfect, great shot.
Speaker 2:So he bombs off the hill and I always have a policy that if an animal's still up and I have a chance to shoot him again, try to shoot another arrow. So he runs down the hill. I don't have time to range, but he went broadside and I shot I think like I missed yardage it by like five, 10 yards. I think I hit over him or something. So he's run. He's, he never even ran.
Speaker 2:He's like walking down this thing and I start following him and I knew the shot was like money. I watched it and he just like I never could get closer than like 150 yards. So him and I are just walking 150 yards apart down the hill and I'm like go down, why are you not going down? He's just like a bulldozer just walking down the hill and I'm like, dude, come on, please go down, please go down. And I'm like starting to wonder, like it's something that I not seen. My shot right, like it looked good. And then I Watch him like go into this little opening and I see him start to like Like do one of these. And he puts his legs out and do this. The will to live for animals is always very impressive, dude. This dude did not want to go out, but then, yeah, eventually tips over and I walked up to him. Yeah, basically, is this big typical five by with the brow time? It's like I think I was a 89 inch antler when I measured it, or something.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then the other side is like a big Match, like mass, and it's like a fork with just like a club Coming off the front like a weird like club to antler like a baby's arm. It's so funky, dude, I was like man, this has got to be like my favorite. It to this day that's my like favorite animal that I've got, just cuz I love Mildere in the hunt and you know shooting them twice and the whole deal was Pretty crazy. So but yeah, I don't know if we'll be able to see that Like that's the buck right there.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Send me that later and I'll put that on the yeah.
Speaker 2:You can kind of see that club is crazy Cool man it reminds me of.
Speaker 1:So this elk season opening day, we're out, we're calling all day. Nothing's talking back to us. We're just trying to get something of a sound off. It's the very end of the day and I'm with Patrick Littrell. He's actually, I think, 2023 world elk calling champ for this year.
Speaker 1:Oh well, for the men's division not the pro division, but the men's division and he rips a bugle and we hear a bugle, so run off into this field and it's this giant open draw and there's a bowl on the backside of it, 600 yards away.
Speaker 1:And he's just looking at us and we're I mean, we're concealed in the trees, he can't see us, but he's just ripping bugles, he's got a spike with him and he just looks weird. He just looks super weird, like there's one side is super tall, the other side it looked like about half as tall and what's going on there? And so we're like maybe he broke it off, who knows, we had a camera guy with us, so the camera guy's like zooming in on him and we set up and you know he's not coming 600 yards across an open field, so we're trying in vain, but either way he does come a little bit closer and I'm sitting there with my binaus because I'm the closest to him and I realized that's, that's not a broken off Like antler, that's, it's like a moose paddle. So he had like a Typical elk antler on one side and his other one was. So it was just, it was wide, it was. It was probably at one point like 12 inches wide, just like wow.
Speaker 1:And it was I don't know. It's like two feet shorter than the other one, but just because the mass my Pat was saying he's like man, that's a 380 inch plus bull, like just because of the mass on that side it was in it. Like I said, it looked super weird. We couldn't quite figure it out. Fortunately we were able to like pull some still frames from the video from the camera guy and like zoom in really close and he was like yeah, I'm gonna name him. I was like we got to name him King, something with that kind of paddle. He's like some King and he's like, no, we're gonna name him big balls. I was like I'll name him King, big balls.
Speaker 1:Never late, never late eyes on him again, but we went back to that field. I ended up killing a bull this year, one draw down from there. But it was super weird to, I know. True, I know that feeling of seeing seeing an animal. You're like what's going on with those antlers. It just didn't make any sense and at first we almost like, wrote him off as, like always, lost half of his right antlers, no reason for it. Yeah, let's leave that guy alone. But he was.
Speaker 2:He was a monster just that sounds like a bitch and bull. Yeah, I love, I love stuff like that. Yeah, and it's crazy to like, especially for For, like maybe not so much for Elk's they travel more but like for Mule, deer and some of these areas we hunt. It's crazy, like that genetic strain from that buck I've shot, I've seen Four or five that are very evidently like descendants of that buck, like I saw one literally the exact same thing, Like a typical side, the weird club, like real narrow and tall. And then I shot another about the next year or maybe two years later that for sure you put their euros next to each other. That one's not as weird. But he's like a, I don't know, like a five by six or something, like also weird kickers and stuff, real narrow, and they're like 100% it's his, like son or brother. So there's money to watch the genetics like carry through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually the funny. You say that the the pat, he hunts that unit all the time with that bull with a paddle and he said that his friend, like two or three years earlier, shot one with a similar paddle, not as big but like something super similar, and they're like wonder if that's he's got to be related.
Speaker 2:So yeah, who?
Speaker 1:knows there's, there's, sometimes there's resident Elk heard. Sometimes they, you know, have hundreds of miles in their range. But it's, the genetics is pretty cool. I was curious if it was an injury or something, because it was. I've never seen an elk Paddle right. It's usually a drop tine or something weird, but it was yeah it was a basically a paddle on one side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is crazy. Yeah, I saw Elk with a drop time this year when we were out hunting as well. It was like kind of a raghorn, but yeah, I'm the right antlery and like a drop time, like probably like that big.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Yeah, well, that's a cool story man. And yeah, houdini's a good name, good name. Yeah my uh, the, the bull that I shot, were naming him Play-Doh, which isn't nearly as cool as Houdini, but it has nothing to do with the bull itself. It has more to do with the story of us getting in there.
Speaker 1:But, I'm saving that for another podcast once I get, once those boys get out of the woods. In fact, one of the guys just put down a cow moose today I think maybe it was yesterday but as soon as he's out of the woods with with his moose, we're gonna, we're gonna record that story. It's a pretty fun one. But yeah, you were right me of one other story you're talking about, like you know, sneaking up on an animal and they just completely disappear. Yours got drove out. But I was an alope hunting one time and we started to realize that you can't stop the truck when you see an alope. You got to just keep driving. As soon as you stop they're gone. But if you keep driving, we drove until we were able to park.
Speaker 1:The truck got up behind this hill and we've got this herd of you know 15 or so an alope and we know the topography well enough that I'm like, hey, if you stay here and keep eyes on them, I could probably get back in the truck, because it's again behind this larger mound, otherwise just everything's flat.
Speaker 1:You know one inch bushes, just like you were saying. I was like, if I can get in the truck, I'll drive around, and there's a road right behind them and I can come up from the other way and the wind would be perfect. And so I do exactly that and I put a pin where I think they're gonna be and I walk in and it gets to the point where I'm like they should be standing right here, like I don't, I don't get it, and I'm like standing up looking around trying to find these Analope and I screw this and I just basically, you know, get out of there, jump back in, go back to the same spot and I'm like, well, what the hell? They were in the exact same spot that when I left them. It's just, apparently my pin was terrible, so I learned my lesson there. It's like the the on X. You know, they have that range finder thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah on the on X. I've now at least twice learned that I need to use that and he's arranged the animal and then put a pin in the direction that amount. Cuz I, my pins are always off. But yeah, I was probably 30 yards from those an alope and neither one of us had any idea. My buddy's like I watched you the whole Time. I don't know why you didn't kill those animals. Yeah yeah, sometimes animals just disappears. You start to move around, right.
Speaker 2:Definitely, yeah, definitely, especially hunting that, like anywhere with little divots or cuts or deserts. Key for that like I've hunted sand dunes before, those are like the toughest, like stuff that disappears so fast Because the dunes are in that you know they're like in the ground and then there one will be connected to like 10 others. So you'll see the deer go in the dune and you'll go over there and he's just completely gone and you'll walk all the dunes and then there somehow they escaped it in yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, James, that was fun. Man, I don't know. Yeah, I know you came with that one especially prepared. You got any other ones that kind of popped up while you were Telling that story that you want to tell.
Speaker 2:Hmm, let's see here. Yeah, all right, I'll toss in a bonus little Havalina story. I bet you don't get many. Have a Lena story.
Speaker 1:So this will be the first Havalina story.
Speaker 2:Let's go All right, so I love but no Havalina.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I love hunting Havalina. It's like I've done it ever since I was a kid, love hunting Havalina and and it's pretty rare to see them by themselves. Right, I've shot like I don't know 20 Havalina, with a bow probably, and two of them have been by themselves, and usually that's because they're big, mature boars that are past their prime and the group will kind of kick them out and then they're like just no Mads on their own. They're very rare to see. Usually they're with like eight to 20 Hathalina.
Speaker 2:So there's one time I'm hunting and Some years I'll dig out like tons of Havalina in the mountains. I'll glass them up and you have a lot of opportunity. Other years it's like you just can't make them out. It's like you're working much harder.
Speaker 2:And this one year it snowed and I was like I'll it would be so bitching to get a Havalina in the snow, like I would love to, like in these mountains. So I'm like I gotta find one today, you know, in the snow. So I'm like, looking so hard and I'm just looking all over the place, cannot find a Havalina to save my life, and I have a deer tag too. But, like this day, I'm like I gotta find a Havalina. So I'm like driving, hitting all these glassing knobs and glass them for like an hour and then move in. I knew they'd be moving all day because it's cold out and Unfortunately the snow is like melting and melting and melting and eventually there's like not really snow. I get to this one vantage point and I glass and glassing and all sudden dude, I see, I see, right on the ridge, like 300 yards in front of me, boom, I have lean is like feeding face to me, like reading.
Speaker 2:I can only see the one, but I'm like there's you know, I know how this it was. Usually you can see when you get over there is like 15s Generally how it goes. Yeah, I'm like all right, this is perfect, I'm going to go get to have a leave, you know. So unfortunately there's no snow anymore, but so I get down there. I don't even remember. Yeah, I put my sneaking shoes on.
Speaker 1:I always do real quick Sneak and shoes, like are we talking like moccasins or what do you use the same?
Speaker 2:idea, but I wear water shoes like that you get at like you know Walmart or whatever for walking in the pool or the beach. They're amazing. I've used a lot of different stuff over the years. Those are not only, I think, the best that I've found, but they're also like 10 bucks, so in their lights they pack in your pack easy. They're real soft, but they have grip and protect their feet. A little from cactus Cactus will still go through, but it's better than just like a sock by far Got it.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I put those on, drop the pack and I'm creeping in winds real good, and I'm like stalking in and I see something to my left. So I'm, of course, thinking it's going to be some havelina mill around. I look to my left and there's three quantum on days like 40 yards away. I don't know if you know what this is. Do you know what this is? No, I don't. So basically, it's a South American animal. It's like in the raccoon family, but it kind of looks. They're pretty rare to see Monkey right Like it looked like a monk and it's yeah pretty pretty much they look like monkeys and they have these huge tails.
Speaker 2:So I had I had glassed them up before, like far away one time. But this time I'm on the ground like 40 yards from these things. I'm like holy smokes. It was cool to see them, but I'm on a stock so I'm like I don't really stand there and just like watch up my like OK, let me go get this havelina. So I start going after this havelina and I couldn't. I think I like lost them for a little bit and I was like maybe I glassed up a quarter Monday. I thought it was a havelina and I was like no, I know, I saw a havelina like right in here. So I'm like stocking on this hill. The wind's pretty good. Finally I see them, but again.
Speaker 2:I only see the one, but every time I stocked, havelina, you all. I personally like to always have my head doing this, because there there could easily be like four, right here in this bush. I'm stocking in, stocking in, and he's just in this cactus, just tear it apart, like facing straight away from me in the wind's great. So I'm stocking. I'm at like 30 yards, 20 yards, 15, 10. Finally I'm at. I'm at nine yards and he's feeding and I'm like, dude, I really would like to. This is already a record for me, as if I get him at nine yards like this. I've shot him closer than that, but not spot and stock like that. So I'm like it would be really cool to get closer. But the problem was I had this big bush in front of me and there's a that. That video is actually on the channel but it's really old. But I think I stood there with the arrow knocked with him feeding at nine yards, facing away from me, I think that I think for like eight minutes or something. Finally he turns just a little bit and I I thump him, obviously like really good shot, and he runs around the tree and I hear him go down and I'm like waiting for the other ones to bust out of there and there just was no other one. So I'm like huh, as the first time I had got one like that.
Speaker 2:So I walk over to where he went down and do this thing was like a giant havelina. You know, like I got some big ones, but this one was like and it is like a wild boar. He was so big, you know, and I have a picture. I'm holding them like in front of my face, like this almost, and he's like touching the ground. Yeah, that's how long, that's how long.
Speaker 2:And he's so thick and I'm like usually I have so many havelina skulls. Usually I don't like keep the heads, but I was like I got a. I got a boil this one to see like if it's bigger or like whatever it's teeth. They're all busted off. It's missing like half its teeth. And sure enough, dude, I boiled that skull and set it next to like another one of my havelina skull. It's like twice as wide almost, and like it's huge. It's taller, wider, and I'm like this thing must have been like I don't know how old they get, but he had to have been ancient, because he's like missing molars and missing front teeth. His tusks are half gone. It was crazy.
Speaker 1:And I heard yeah, quick question. I know that like hogs, right, you can't even hear of hogzilla like 1200 pound giant hogs. I know how havelinas are not hogs. Yeah, they're different species, but they do look similar. Do they can, they like. What's the biggest one you've ever heard of.
Speaker 2:Probably that one. I've never heard of someone get one bigger than that and I mean maybe on some of these farms people shoot them like you might get a real fat one, but this was like a mountain one and I would guess he was probably. I would say your average mature havelina is like 40 to 50 pounds. Probably this one. I wouldn't be surprised if he was like 60 or 70.
Speaker 1:He's just he was he's substantially bigger, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it was like a is a unicorn. Like I said, I've shot so many. I've never seen one like that. Like normally, you boil the skull and they all look roughly the same, other than like the tusks might be a little different. This one's skull is literally like 30 percent bigger than all the other ones. That's crazy man.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Another question about havelina I've never hunted them. I want to, but do you eat that, or is it more like just a game animal? You?
Speaker 2:do. Oh yeah, no, I eat them, yeah. So actually I enjoy the meat a lot from havelina. In the way I like to do it is when we get one, I'll we just stew chunk the whole animal, so back straps, everything's just stew chunks. And then we got a stew recipe that's really, really good, like I think it's a good protein, like good texture and the flavors, a spine, especially in a stew like where there's a bunch of other stuff, and I actually look forward to that, like more than a lot of my other animals eat and have a little, would you?
Speaker 1:would you compare it, like I want to say, to pork? Is it basically? No, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's kind of you can't really compare it to much, I don't think it's like kind of like a, the weird color to the meat. It's almost like more of a, like a lighter color meat, but it's kind of stringy. You know, their diet is like eating cactus, so cactus and bugs, so it's okay, I mean, but I think they're good and yeah they're, they're an interesting animal to hunt. They definitely teach people how to glass, like how to use binoculars, because a lot of people think they glass but really all they do is walk up a mountain and go like this for three minutes and then move, like when we're glassing in this country, it's like now we're sitting in like the same vantage point for like four hours and looking at everything over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:For the deer, that's how you find the hammers or or for Abelina, and I think a lot of people could benefit from going have Lena hunting, because they're going to be like, oh, it's going to be easy to find one, and then day seven you'll go. I still haven't seen one, because you got to learn how to glass and a lot of people, I think, especially from the East Eastern guys, are like even Western guys. A lot of people don't know how to glass like proficiently. I strut with him and I think have Lena's, like have a Lena in the mountains Like not not on farms like obviously that's different. But if you're hunting them in the mountains and like have to find him at a washes and stuff, that'll teach you how to glass without question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw my inability to glass by my hunting buddy. He is a phenomenal glass. Do you can spot anything? Anywhere we're driving down the road? He's like boop six out over there, like just it's just. He's got a natural ability, while me, on the other hand, it is probably, I know, my weakest thing as far as hunting. I struggle with doing it, with the patience of doing it, just all it's. It's a skill for sure.
Speaker 2:And a hundred percent, takes practice and like getting better at it. You know a lot of my friends when, when they would come hunt and they were newer hunters at the time they would be like how come you blast up everything and like we never see anything and I go. Well, there's a couple of things. Number one, I'm not on my phone. Yeah, like I'm actually looking the whole time for hours. And number two, like I've done this for I don't even know how many hours of my life like a tremendous amount of time. So you just started.
Speaker 2:You can't expect to like put up the same results as someone who's like spent countless hours doing this. And then it's fun because by year, five or six they're seeing a lot more. You know they still might not be seeing like the same amount, but it's come up a lot. And I think that goes to show that the more time you spend behind the glass and less time on your phone and like really focused on looking, the better you get at knowing what colors to look for, shapes, sizes, movements, like things like that. You just kind of learn how to be better at it in your eyes to, I think, kind of like adjust to seeing things too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll say that my hunting buddy, the one thing he is great at spotting things. He's absolutely garbage at explaining where he's looking. I'm like where?
Speaker 2:do you look? Probably he's like there's trees.
Speaker 1:And I'm like there are 10 million trees over there, Like you're not helping me out. So we're still working on the full picture here, but we're really.
Speaker 2:I think I relate to that a little bit. That's funny, cool James.
Speaker 1:All right, man Well, I appreciate you, I'm not going to turn you away if you want to tell any more stories. Otherwise we can wrap up. I appreciate your time. Either way, my guy Dude, I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2:Let's do another one sometime and save them, but I think we're about 40 minutes here, so pretty solid. And again, I do appreciate you having me on this fun. I got a lot more stories so we could hit some more sometime, but that's good man, I like your help story.
Speaker 1:I want to see maybe you can send me a picture of- that paddle bowl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are good pictures somewhere.
Speaker 1:The only ones I have were me taking a photo of the computer screen. So the garbage. But I'll send you what I have and then when I do actually get a better picture of it. Cool Because the guys that have that information they went from our hunt in Colorado to Idaho for 20 days Back here the moose hunt. So I'm waiting to see some of the footage that they got, but I'll definitely send it your way. But, yeah, why don't we tell the people where they can find you your website, instagram, where they share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our main thing is YouTube. Just Bo Disciples is the channel. We do a lot of like archery stuff, a lot of hunts. So, like Michael was saying, we do some fun stuff. That's way different. We do some like storytelling, whatever. There's all sorts of content. Then it's Bo Disciples on Instagram, tiktok, facebook as well, and then bodisciplescom. That's it. So we're kind of everywhere Perfect, man, perfect, and I'll put links to all that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:You know like we're supposed to do and, man, I appreciate you. Thank you again. It was a lot of fun hearing your stories. Do appreciate you and we'll do it again. Brother, Sounds good. All right, guys, that's it, no, no no, no, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, that's it. Another couple of stories in the books. Again, I want to thank James, of course, for coming on the podcast. He didn't hesitate to jump to my call and tell us some of his favorite stories. I thought of some off the cuff. It was a lot of fun and it was great to meet him. Hopefully I get to redeem myself and by the guy I've met him in person someday here in the near future. Beyond that, guys, please check out Bo Disciples. Again, links to everything you need are in the show notes. While you're there, go ahead and follow us on Instagram and give us a review on whatever you're listening to right now, whether that's Spotify, apple Podcasts. Give us a review, hopefully five stars, and hopefully you have more people finding us here in the future to reach out and tell us their crazy stories. That's it, guys. Thank you again for tuning in. I appreciate all of you. Hope you guys enjoyed, make it out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.