Get ready to immerse yourself in breath-taking hunting tales from our guest, Josh Sunberg. Coming from a humble farming background in Southwest Iowa, Josh opens up about his passion for hunting, thrilling encounters, missed shots, and some unforgettable adventures. From corn fields to big timber blocks, he shares his knowledge of different hunting terrains, keeping you hooked with his tales of hunting in the wild.
The episode takes an interesting turn as Josh dives into his first hunting experience, sharing invaluable lessons about the importance of preparation. He recounts how a simple hunting trip with his dad turned into an unexpected learning experience. His story of the failed attempt at tracking a buck and the panic that followed serves as a strong reminder of the unpredictability of nature. Further, he sheds light on the technical aspects of hunting, sharing his experience of putting GPS collars on big horn sheep lambs, revealing the fascinating technology behind it.
We also explore the darker side of hunting as Josh shares a shocking incident of witnessing illegal hunting practices. His stories of hunting challenges in Yellowstone, mountain sheep hunting adventures, and even surviving a blizzard during an elk hunting expedition in Wyoming, encapsulate the thrill, challenge, and deep respect for nature that comes with hunting. Josh's commitment to ethical hunting practices shines through, offering valuable insights for hunters at all levels. So, get ready to embark on this captivating journey with us, as we explore the exciting and unpredictable world of hunting.
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Josh Sunberg
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Josh's Youtube
Get ready to immerse yourself in breath-taking hunting tales from our guest, Josh Sunberg. Coming from a humble farming background in Southwest Iowa, Josh opens up about his passion for hunting, thrilling encounters, missed shots, and some unforgettable adventures. From corn fields to big timber blocks, he shares his knowledge of different hunting terrains, keeping you hooked with his tales of hunting in the wild.
The episode takes an interesting turn as Josh dives into his first hunting experience, sharing invaluable lessons about the importance of preparation. He recounts how a simple hunting trip with his dad turned into an unexpected learning experience. His story of the failed attempt at tracking a buck and the panic that followed serves as a strong reminder of the unpredictability of nature. Further, he sheds light on the technical aspects of hunting, sharing his experience of putting GPS collars on big horn sheep lambs, revealing the fascinating technology behind it.
We also explore the darker side of hunting as Josh shares a shocking incident of witnessing illegal hunting practices. His stories of hunting challenges in Yellowstone, mountain sheep hunting adventures, and even surviving a blizzard during an elk hunting expedition in Wyoming, encapsulate the thrill, challenge, and deep respect for nature that comes with hunting. Josh's commitment to ethical hunting practices shines through, offering valuable insights for hunters at all levels. So, get ready to embark on this captivating journey with us, as we explore the exciting and unpredictable world of hunting.
Instagram
Josh Sunberg
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Josh's Youtube
Howdy folks and welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and, as usual, we got a good one for you today. Today, we connect with Josh Sunberg. Josh had some crazy stories. He was a lot of fun to talk to. He accidentally, I think, tagged me in something and then I basically hounded him until he came on and shared some of his stories with us. That being said, he shared some with me offline too, and I can tell you right now we're going to get Josh back on this podcast until some of his other stories. But yeah, it's a, it's a unique episode, from vagina trackers to all sorts of other crazy things, so I hope you guys enjoy it. I don't want to steal any more of his thunder, so let's go ahead and kick this thing off and let Josh tell you some of his stories. All right, josh, welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Brother, how are you? Hey, I'm doing great Good man good.
Speaker 1:You know we were. We were goofing around before the, the, the actual recording here, but we kind of ran into each other on social media. You tagged me on accident on something, basically, and I wouldn't leave you alone. So I'm glad you're here, I'm glad you wanted to tell some hunting stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've always, I've always wanted to be on a podcast like this, just for the first, for the fun of it, you know, just to share some stories or inside, or whatever, you know, whatever anybody's interested in to hear from me. So I just, I love talking hunting man. I live it all the time. That's what I do for my job, that's what I do for you know, that's why it's my passion, it's my career, so it's just it's what I do.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man, that's awesome. I told you already, and this is for the listeners, but you found a good first podcast because this one's nothing but fun, because you get to tell your favorite stories. You don't gotta tell us how to string a bow or whatever it is, you just get to have some fun with it. So, but let's, let's take a quick step back, and why don't we introduce you to the folks, josh? Why don't we tell them who they're hearing some stories from today?
Speaker 2:All right, awesome. So my name is Joshua Sunberg. I originate from Southwest Iowa, so that's where I was born and raised. I was born into a farming family. You know my, my dad and grandpa farmed and that's that's kind of what I grew up doing. Also is I farmed and helped out around the farm and you know I I got into hunting when I was kind of younger. We had some family, friends and stuff that would come by and be like asked for permission to hunt. We had deer hunt. You know we had deer in quail and and pheasant and all that stuff. So pheasant hunting back when I was a kid was huge, I mean absolutely huge. When I was like if six to probably about 10 and so, guys would come knock on the door and I'd get to go out with them and you know, see, see how they hunted and watch the dogs work and all that stuff. Sometimes I was the bird dog too.
Speaker 2:But you gotta be right, you gotta be. Yeah, that's awesome, I gotta ask I hear Iowa.
Speaker 1:I've never hunted Iowa but everyone always says you guys got the biggest white tails. Do you remember having just like monster deer there? Or like since you were an actual working farm where the deer maybe not as big as maybe some of those, those properties that are like just deer properties?
Speaker 2:So what a lot of people I think get hung up on is. You know they look at a property, you look at a corn field that has basically no trees on it and look at it and be like I can't, like there's no deer out there, there's no reason to even go try to hunt that. And that's how our places, a lot of our places, are, is it's like, yeah, corn fields and soybean fields with terraces, grassback terraces, and so that's what I grew up hunting. I, you know, I didn't grow up hunting all these big timber blocks, you know, and I'd see tons of deer, we'd see tons of deer growing up.
Speaker 2:I mean, the deer population was insane. It's not as good as it. It's definitely come down from its height because you know guys have taken out you know grass, water lanes and and you know wetlands when they're not supposed to and stuff like that. So, like some of the CRP, grasses have come out and head roaches, head roge, head rose and all that stuff. They've taken all that stuff out too just to farm more acres. They're still big bucks there. I mean, I grew up with big bucks. I, I could, I've killed, I've killed a lot of deer, over 140 inches. So, and I've and I've guided hunters on that stuff and I I can't even tell you how many times I brought hunters out and buddies out to come hunt our places and they look at it and they just look at me like I'm crazy, like there's deer out here, and I'm like, yeah, there's deer out here, and then they'll come out, they'll, they'll hunt it and they'll be. Oh my gosh, I can't believe.
Speaker 2:I killed this buck here, so yeah, I think it just yeah, I think a lot of guys just overshoot that and just don't you know. They're like oh, it's not a big block of timber, it's like it's not going to be any good, but that's not the case.
Speaker 1:So that's interesting yeah, I gotta get out to Iowa at some point and do some hunting, but um and you're in. Colorado now did hunting, take you out there.
Speaker 2:So work, yeah, so, um, I'm also a wildlife researcher so I do, uh, I do um deer captures, uh, elk captures, bear captures, whatever you know kind of whatever. Um, so I put like, I put like GPS collars on animals. That's kind of my, my job, so I'm constantly hunting them too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, so that reminds me for some reason of a YouTube video. You may, I bet you've seen it, but it's like they they're chasing down elk in a helicopter and the guy like jumps out of the helicopter and like wrestles an elk to the ground. Have you seen that video?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to be in that video.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's not me, but I I haven't bugged so, but I've definitely. I've watched them again. You know I'm certified to do it and all that fun stuff, and so I mean I'm trained to actually do that, but I've never, never, got the opportunity to do it. I've done it like everything else that you can imagine.
Speaker 2:When it comes, you know, using big drop nets to catch like anything from like bighorn, sheep, deer, elk, to you know we'll, we'll use um clover traps which are like basically, you know, like a mesh trap to catch the deer and then, and then you know, just ground darting them, so we use an actual dart gun to catch them. But the range is like people don't realize that it's the, the, the dart guns. You can only shoot them 25 yards, so it's like you're really limited. It's almost like you're archery hunting, like I mean it's harder than archery hunting because you have to get so close to them. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, because because you know the FPS on it is like so slow and actually when you actually try to shoot something with it, it's just it's tough that makes sense so yeah is that?
Speaker 1:is that all through, like carnal parks and wildlife, or are you like a third party company that they like hire out, or how does that work, sorry?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I so. So I don't work for. I work for a university, um, I don't, I don't really want, I don't really want to say what university, because that's a long story back up on that of why I'm here too. Uh, yeah, but okay, okay, we won't.
Speaker 1:We won't get into that, I'm just gonna let you know I'm a buffalo and so I'm just gonna assume that we don't like each other.
Speaker 2:But that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, all right. Well, let's, let's get back on track, man, let's get back yeah, um, you're here to tell some hunting stories, man.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's that's what my listeners came for. So why don't we set the stage um, tell us a little bit about, like, where you are on this first hunt and let's dive into it, man?
Speaker 2:all right, so I figured I'd start way early. You know that, on my first hunt I ever did in my life, uh, on for big games, so my first deer hunt I ever did, um, which was in Iowa, uh, so when I was a kid, um, I, I, uh, I broke my ankle so I shot, I, I was, I was being a dumb kid and I and I jumped off something I shouldn't have jumped off, trying to do a flip, you know all that fun stuff. And I broke my ankle and I was in a cast and uh, uh, that was upcoming before hunting season, ever, ever even crossed my mind. And uh, I ended up getting chickenpox on top of it right before, right before hunting season. And so I was, I was, I was dog, I was dog sick, you know, with chickenpox and it was, it was awful. And uh, I'd gone through hunter safety.
Speaker 2:You know when I was, when I was 12 this was when I was 14 would have been my first hunting season and um, my dad basically was like, hey, you know what, why don't, why don't me? And you go out and like, let's just go try to hunt. You know one of our places, like, well, I'll just push, you know I'll just push some terraces. That's how you hunt in Iowa. You know you're sitting there and and you got guys that'll, they'll push a deer into you. You know that's just how everybody grows up hunting there, and you use a shotgun. So so we we go out buckshot.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming you're a slug no, no, we have to use slugs. You can't use. You can't use double. Yeah, you can't use buckshot in Iowa, no, um, but yeah, we were using, we're using a slug gun. So 12-eight shotguns. So me and dad went and shot shot before, or he was using a 16 gauge one single shot. I was using a ump, uh, like a remington, was it the remington 500s? So, or, I have a moss bird now, is it? Is it remington 500 or moss bird 500? I think it's a moss, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think I have like a remington 810 or something, I don't know. I don't know, yeah, yeah, but something like that, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2:I don't shotgun, I don't, I don't really, I'm not big enough shotgun anymore. I you know muzzle, loader rifle and bow now. So, uh, uh, anyway, I uh went out, you know, took some shots at 100 yards with the guns, you know iron sights. Um, dad was hitting, not so great, but I was doing, okay I was. I was hitting a you know it's well with 12 inch by 12 inch. You know, brand new to hunting, no clue what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Um, so you know, because dad was a drag, grabbed me and he's just like let's go hunting, I'm just hunting. Why do we want to go deer hunting? We always see, you know, there's deer everywhere. He said, well, let's just go, so we're going out. Yeah, yeah, it's funny because it's just like this the accession, just like, started after this. Um, so we end up going out, go to the spot, uh, and it's not very far. We just walk down this hedgerow and I sat down and I'm not even kidding when I we were sitting there maybe 10 minutes and this buck starts running right at me and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm like there's a, there's a buck coming right towards me and then all of a sudden he stops, he's like probably 200 yards out there and I'm like I at least knew enough then that I was like, okay, well, I can't shoot that far. That's, that's really far.
Speaker 2:Um, and a car drives by and sees this buck and on the gravel road probably so it'd be a quarter mile away because it was an 80 acre and then 160 that we were on and we were on the fence, we were kind of on a terrace next to the fence line and he was just getting right up there in the center of the 80 acres. So that car stops on the road and the buck just takes off running straight to us after it sees that car stop and this person. I watched this person get out of the car. They had binoculars, they weren't hunting but they got binoculars out. I'm like more interested in what the person's doing and what the deer is doing. You know, I was just like what is this guy doing? And I'm like, oh, this buck's coming right to me and so he finally runs up and he's probably 50 yards away and so I let him have it.
Speaker 2:I dropped this deer dead in his tracks. I mean, I stoned this buck and I'm like cool, cool. Well, that was easy. You know, 10 minutes into hunting we drove like you know, less than a half, or it was like a half a mile away from my house and I'm like this is all this hunting stuff's easy. You know, whatever it's, hunting stuff's easy. Well, this is not the story goes. I've heard that a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah it ends up in the same way, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I start, I get over the top of the terrace to walk down to this buck. He gets up and takes off running and I didn't realize I hadn't jacked another shell in. And so, you know, in the moment of panic, I'm like trying to get another shell in this gun and I'm just like I couldn't do it by the time he was gone. I mean, he was 150 yards across the field and I took a shot at him, wasn't even close. I'm like man, what in the world happened? Like what? I just I just didn't make any sense to me. And so this buck just takes off running and I go down and look and there's no blood. There's no blood anywhere. I'm just like this doesn't just make any sense.
Speaker 2:I'm like I don't know what happened with this deer and I tell dad and dad just like, well, let's just go somewhere else, okay, and while we, we, we, you know, because we're new I was new to hunting, you're one of us hunting that much, You're my dad, so it wasn't like we wanted to, like, you know, we didn't even know to look for blood and blood trailer or anything like that, but at least I looked. You know where I dropped it, and along the fence line and stuff like that. But beyond that, you know, I didn't know any better. Yeah, and so we took off and we went to another spot and I sat down along the fence line and it started snowing and then a little bit of rain mixed in and so I had to get a bag to put my cast in. For my, I had to get a bag to put my cast in and lay there on the ground. Like you know, I'm out there hobbling around but like, like, just like trying to go on one foot, like I have a. You know, I'm like it was. It was super interesting trying to hunt with that cast and like get up and walk around with it and like, yeah, I definitely was doing stuff. I probably shouldn't have done that with that cast, a broken ankle, like that, but I was trying. I was trying my hardest because I was just like, okay, now I kind of want to get one.
Speaker 2:So dad drops me off in the truck and you know I walked 50 yards to this other fence and he comes around, he loops, he loops around, he walks all the way. I mean, he, this guy, he probably walked like two miles around just to walk this one terrace to me and see, saw, zero deer, no deer. And I'm like man, I'm like no deer came out of anything, he didn't spook anything. So he loops back and well, we meet up. And he's like, well, I think I should walk back. And I'm like, really, you think you should? Yeah, I think I should walk back and try to push this terrace again Because you never know, there might have been one in there. I'm like, yeah, right, you know these deer see a person and you know they see that car.
Speaker 2:Stop on the road a quarter mile away and take out or half mile away, even, you know and take off running, sprinting the other opposite direction. I'm like there's no way. Well, as he walks, as he's starting to walk away about 200 yards, this buck pops out and starts running, but terrorists straight to me, opposite of him. So he's like walking, so he'd be walking south, and the deer started running north towards me and I'm like, okay, okay, and he started, this buck gets. I mean, he's like 100 yards away, like, okay, it's about as far as what I was shooting. I'm like I'm just going to wait because he's running this bucket on a dead sprint and I'm just going to say the same deer.
Speaker 1:Right, like you can tell, it's the same deer.
Speaker 2:No, this is a different deer. So this is a completely different deer, completely different spot. I know it's, but this is just novice hunting, like I just I just didn't tell the story to like because, like we had no, like I had no idea what I was doing. So, but so this tears spring towards me and it I'm just like, okay, I can't shoot, I can't shoot, and it I'm not even kidding you, it got. So there's a, there's a fence, and then it's like this brone grass that goes to the terrorists, and that deer got to that brone grass and then he sees me and stops and then turns broadside about, like he's about to take off, and I shoot him and I drop him, same as the last one. So I rewrack, I this time I was like I'm not taking any chances. I rewrack and I shot him two more times Cause you know we had plugs, like we had plugs in our gun, cause you know we that's another thing.
Speaker 2:It's like you didn't need, I didn't need to have a plug in my gun, but it's like I had plugs in my gun, like there's a plug in the gun, so you can only have the three rounds. And then I reloaded and but then I, then I then I crawled over the fence and dad came back and he's like, oh my gosh, that's awesome. He actually he caught this one, and so it was awesome and it was like a he's probably a hundred and he's probably 130 inch nine, point, just a three and a half year old deer. Um, you know younger deer, but yeah, that was, it was pretty cool. And then so we tagged that buck, get him in the bed of the truck. My dad had a buddy who, like processed, and so that's kind of how I learned how to process animals. Is through this, this guy, danny Robertson? And so I kind of learned how to process things and, like you know, the whole aspect of skinning and all that stuff, and it was a slow process. Let me tell you what. But now now it's actually in the second nature now. But so so this story gets.
Speaker 2:This story gets a little crazier, because I'm sitting there, and I think it was like two days later, and I'm sitting there and my mom comes up to me and you know I'm still sitting there with chicken pox. I'm like itching everywhere. So, um, but I'm sitting there and we get a call from our neighbor and he's like hey, did you guys shoot a buck. And we're like, oh no, we're like, yeah, we totally did, because we had quit hunting and we both, we each had a tag. So I don't know if you know how Iowa works, but you can party hunt in Iowa, so yeah. So during shotgun seasons or during well, they're called firearm seasons now. But so so my dad can share his tag with me and I can share my tag with my dad, or vice versa.
Speaker 2:So the neighbor calls and he's like hey, there's a dead deer back here. And we're like, oh my gosh, that's probably the deer that I ended up shooting at. And we get up to it, it's obliterated by coyotes. I mean, there's nothing left of this thing. But I look at it and it looks like so I hit like the base of its antler and that's why it dropped. And he must have. He must have just got some type of concussion or something from that and that's how he ended up dying. But but we tagged that one too. So that one was. We tagged, dad put his tag on that one and cause yeah, like I said, you can legally do that in Iowa. And and we brought it home and you know it was that one was a, so he was a 144 inches but he had four drop times and a double main beam and he was. He was really cool. Yeah, 21, 21,. Scoreable points.
Speaker 1:Wow, so that's a cool yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, super cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just where I'm gonna have a couple of things, man. So like you're talking about in just not knowing right when you first start.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like my first time I wasn't 10. So I don't have as nearly as many excuses. I was like 30, 30, 31, 32. And man, we, I shoot my first elk with a muzzle loader and the only thing they told me to do is reload your muzzle loader and I never really thought why, right? So I'm, reload it and after I shoot, I hear someone yell through the woods who just shot? And I'm like, why shot?
Speaker 1:And it turns out as my brother in law. So like we're like you're shooting animal. The next thing you should be doing is yelling as loud as you can through the woods. You just don't know what you don't know, and so, like we're yelling, we're trying to find each other. So it's my brother in law and we were screaming through the woods. We eventually running through. He's like I shot an elk and I'm like I shot one too. He's like I don't know where to shoot. I don't know where my wind. I'm like I'm standing where I shot my and we're like just screaming back and forth. I ended up, we ended up finding that elk. It only made it about 50 yards from where I shot it, and part of the reason for that is because my brother in law shot the same elk, so he shot it five.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Just boom like it was dead. Right then I saw it again after seeing another elk that I passed up because behind that elk was a tent and I was like, oh, I can't shoot, I can't take that shot. So I let that one run by, ran over to where it ran in the woods, turned around, there's another elk, shot that elk turns out it was the same elk and it was. I mean, it was live for 45 minutes at 50 yards but it wasn't going anywhere. And you don't know I should. Why do they have me reload my muzzle loader? At the time I had no idea and now I'm like, well, I should have shot it again if it was still on its feet, but I did. Yeah, I just let it stand there. 45. So you don't know, you don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're such. I mean, and that's the thing it's like it's such a learning, like hunting is just such a learning. It's just learned behavior between animals and like talking with other hunters. You know, listening to stories like this, even you know it's just like that. You have to share those stories so that people like you know they can grow in the sport and like figure things out for themselves.
Speaker 1:Absolutely 100%. You know, you learn a mistake somebody else yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And another thing go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like if you shoot a deer, it's like you need to do everything physically possible to like look everywhere you know, follow the tracks in the snow If it comes to that, if you're sure you hit it, like how I dropped it, you know, it's just like, you know, and he only made it. He only made it like half a month, like three quarter of a mile over the hill, the next, the next hill, towards the neighbors, you know, and it's just like yeah, yeah, so he didn't, he didn't. I mean he made it a ways, but it was like that was 100% the deer. So it was just like but it's so crazy that just shooting him in the antler and that's he got concussed or something and that's how he died. So, yeah, crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, crazy. Well, your story also reminded me of one other story, and this one's not mine, so I'm not going to tell all of it, but I will. I'll tell you where to find it. So, episode 30 of my podcast, jim Huntsman awesome guy, amazing story, and you were saying like you had a chicken pox and you had a broken leg and you had a cast on and all that stuff. This guy he had. He had like surgery on his testicles and he went there and the and I'm going to.
Speaker 1:there's a lot to it, but the culmination of the story is he realizes, when he's waist deep in a swamp, that he had surgery on his nuts two days before. And I was just like, oh God, jim. And so, if I mean, I know, Josh, you haven't listened to that one, so 30, you got to check it out. Awesome episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Listeners out there. Check it out, guys. It's absolutely, if you haven't listened to it hilarious episode with Jim Huntsman, so but, yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there. But, man, that was a. That's a great story, Josh. Yeah, it's funny. The first hunts never go as smooth as as you'd like. They never do.
Speaker 2:No, they never, never do.
Speaker 1:No, it's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely does not go anywhere. What you think would ever come according to plan for hunting somewhere new, or you know, it's always, it's always seems like it's that way. So, yeah, well, cool, well, let's keep going, let's keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Hit us with a good one. What else do you got Give us? Set the stage for the next story, all right.
Speaker 2:So I'm trying to think which one should I do. I'll do a. I'll do my big horn sheep. I'll do my U big horn sheep, which is this hunts actually on YouTube, so but I have, I have that one posted Anyway. So I was looking at draw stats in Colorado for non residents. I was sitting there one day and I'm just like looking at all these draw stats for non residents and I'm like I always wanted to hunt sheep and I'm just like looking through, looking through and I have, you know, I have a sheep point and you know it takes by the. It takes and Colorado takes three preference points in the, you know, in the big big draws, to actually start to, you know, to actually be able to start getting bonus points, be, you know, have a chance to actually get to actually draw a tag. So I'm like looking at that, I'm like, oh well, it's going to take me, you know, two more years and you know it's like I can't remember if it's a hundred or $150 per preference point or Colorado.
Speaker 1:It's pricey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's just like I put in for all these states. I always forget how much it actually is, but I'm like looking and I'm like, oh man, well, it's going to take me two more years, and you know. And then I was like, oh, I was on, I was on the, I was on not hunt. Well, what's the other one, go hunt? I was on Go hunt and I'm looking at, like I said, I'm looking at the stats and looking through everything and I'm like man, I can draw a you big horn sheep tag for you know, two point, two preference points. I'm like, okay, awesome, well, I'm going to start putting in for this hunt. Let me ask you is that?
Speaker 1:is that two cause you don't? You can't even get in until you have three, or am I wrong?
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. But but it's preference up to that point. So it's like so you can have one to one to three and still preference. It's kind of weird. So there's only a couple hunts like that, like on the big scale, so like there's like a moose hunt here in Colorado that you can draw as a non resident with like two preference points. Still, a lot of people don't know that After saying this, now there's going to be some guy with three points that's going to put in now and it's going to. You know, but good luck to you, man. It's going to look like whoever does that.
Speaker 2:So but yeah, they got to find it first, we won't tell them what unit we'll just well, it doesn't take too much work.
Speaker 2:But but you know, you can see that with the, you big horn sheep, and so, like you can actually still draw a couple of units here with, with you know, two preference points. So I was like man, you know what, that'd be pretty cool. So I put in for that, I put in for that tag and with one point and I'm like, well, I'm just going to put in for it. You know, you never know. And so you know, the draw comes and goes and I didn't get the tag and so I'm like, ah, whatever.
Speaker 2:But at this point I'm working a big horn sheep job in Montana. So I'm doing I'm putting GPS callers on big horn sheep lamps. We literally go up there and we capture these lamps, you know, and then put put a little GPS transmitter on them that correlates to their mother's collar. So we actually catch the mom to and put the GPS color on mom beforehand and then put like they're vaginal implant transmitters that we put in them and then when they give birth those come out. So we know when they give birth. So we go up there and catch the lamps. So anyway, the connection to that story is that's a lot of information, josh.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, hey it's, it's biology man, it's, it's it's a lot of research. It's like well, that research, that's how you you know that's. Some people don't know how you do it.
Speaker 2:We just got to mix in a little science with some of the tracking devices yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what you have to, that's how you, that's how you get a lot of these animals. I mean, they do this research project everywhere and it's like, yeah, you put, you put those things in and that's when they give birth, that's when they come out. So it's really helpful when you're trying to catch those young, young animals, because a big horse, sheep, once it's 24 hours old, it'll climb mountains better than any of us can. I mean it will. How do you?
Speaker 1:know that it's fallen out the device in question? How do you know that it's time to go collect?
Speaker 2:So basically we'll get a. They have a light sensor on them, they have a temperature sensor on them and then they have a distance like a distance from the collar.
Speaker 1:So once, once they once it's all the distance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so once. So then once the light basically once light and temperature go off, that's our like we got to go and we get notifications. Like it literally just gets sent to us via email on our phone. Like sometimes it'll text us to it on our phone All that fun stuff, but we'll get. We. We literally are glued to that thing when it's when it's like we're trying to catch lambs or fawns or elk, calves or whatever so, and it's like sometimes sometimes you have to miles out there to get up, but anyway. So I was doing this job and you know I'm hiking in all this crazy sheep country in Montana and just you know I'm getting, I'm getting an awesome shape. And I get a call from CPW or our Parks and Wildlife for people don't know. And they call and they say, hey, the guy who put in, who had two point preference points, drew another tag in California for a ram and he turned his tag back in. Do you want this tag?
Speaker 1:Oh, it doesn't go back to like the lottery or like the leftover tag list. They call the next guy on the list.
Speaker 2:Right. So that's, that's what they did. That's what they did. And so I was like, of course I'm like, oh my gosh. So now I'm like I got this tag with one point and I've I've driven by the unit. I've never even I've e-scouted it, but I've never even like I've never scout, I've never like driven in the area before other than like I drove by on the interstate. Yeah, so it's like I've seen this mountain range before, but I, you know, like I said, I've never been in it. So now I'm sitting here I'm like, oh my gosh. Now I'm all excited because now I got a summer scout and this story is a little crazier too. So I, I started doing a, started working in another job while I was up in Montana, pretty fun one. I don't know if you look through my Instagram too much, but I started working for the Yellowstone production. So Yellowstone, the TV show.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I started doing some extra stuff on that. Just to make you know, you don't make a lot of money in wildlife conservation or research, so it's like I was trying to make some supplemental income too. So I started working on the show doing some extra background stuff and yeah, but anyway I ended up getting that job and so I was busy with that now and so like I was doing that and the sheep stuff, and so I hadn't zero time to just got my, my area. But lo and behold, so so normally it's a really easy hunt, so normally.
Speaker 2:So there's a main road that goes all the way up to this, you know, 13,000 foot peak, and they shut that road down, federally closed. It Shut down. There was like a, there was like straight line winds or a tornado or something I don't know if they ever figure out exactly what it was but blue, all these, all these trees down, and so they closed that road down. And so now I'm sitting here, I'm like trying to figure out how to get in this area. Like, sitting here, I'm like, oh my gosh, how do I even get in here? Like I'll just hike the road. Well, come to find out you can't just hike that, that they literally the Forest Service, like made it so that way you can't, you're not even legally allowed to hike the road in there.
Speaker 1:Like it's. It's a leak.
Speaker 2:I didn't know they could do that either, but this is like. I have this on my YouTube video. They have a sign there that like you're not like no unauthorized person to even walk up that road and the trails were shut down. Like all the hiking trails back up into the other side, to the to the north, were all shut down, but there was one lone road on the south hand side that you could hike all the way in there, like seven miles to this, to this peak. But it's like I mean your elevation is insane in there and so I find Rams?
Speaker 1:and yeah, absolutely, yeah, crazy yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, but this, this is a you hunt, this is you hunt, this is you, not a ramp.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So anyway, luckily, I was in really good shape and so I, you know, I went out like three days, or I think it was like three days before season, and I and I ended up going up this road and it was, you know, all these trees had blown over it and they had they like people had already cut them out, like all the elk hunters, because it was getting close to elk season and and for our tree, and so they had already cut all these, all these trees out of the way on this road, which was really nice, and so, anyway, I got almost to the top of it and I camped up there and then hiked. I ended up hiking all the way in there and it was, it was some, it was some time. That was tough, it was all shaley rock, just yeah. Yeah, it was, it was crazy side healing, but I got in there that first day and I brought my tent with me and I camped up there and I I ended up finding some. I've ended up finding quite a few use that afternoon. So I found a giant big group of lambs and use glass throw mall. There are some really nice old, mature use that you know didn't have any lambs.
Speaker 2:And so, like I'm like, sitting there, I'm like, oh, this is going to be slam dunk, like this is going to be, this is going to be nice and nice and easy. Yeah, quick meat hunt. Yeah, yeah, quick meat hunt. And so then I, you know, I back out and like, okay, this, this is going to be awesome. So then my other buddies I had some awesome buddies my buddy, harley from Kansas, leo from Nebraska and Landon, which he's moving to Idaho now, but we met in Iowa. Anyway, they came out, they, they, they were awesome. I just was like, hey, would anybody want to come help me on this hunt? And they were just like, absolutely. So these guys came out. And which is so cool, so cool I was just I just put a word out on Facebook and these guys were like instantly, like, yes, so they, they came out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got, we got camp all set up and I loop back around and I can glass the mountain and some points from, you know, a couple of miles away, and so I'm glassing up all the mountains and I see I saw two sheep the next day and then that big group was gone, I mean just gone, and there's so, so the way, yeah. So the way this ridge works, this mountain range works, is one side of it is all public and the other side is all private. So you can't even, you can't even like hike on the peaks. You have to hike on the side hills. Ok, because because it's private, so it's private on the tops it's. It's really goofy and it's like, you know, no signs, no, nothing. And so he had to be super careful in that unit, not to, you know, go up on one of those, those edges or anything, because to actually like kind of look older. But so I'm like I'm sitting there and like gosh, darn it. I'm like, oh no, this is, this is.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm always thinking, I was thinking the worst.
Speaker 2:I wasn't, I wasn't very, I mean, I was optimistic, but I wasn't like, I wasn't super. I got a little nervous when I was, when they were, when that big group was gone, because this is where they're supposed to be all the time, 24, seven, like never supposed to be out of this area. And from what I, all you know, read online and everybody else had said, and the biologists and everything like that, and so I back out of. You know, we get out of there and but we're sitting there before opening day just having a ball, you know. And I was like, all right, well, we'll give it a go in the morning. So we, we hike up the trail in the morning, because I had hiked all that, all that way, all the way back out. That's seven miles back out and yeah, yeah. And so we hike up in the morning, and Leo and Harley I think it was after the first half mile, because they haven't hiked up there with me yet, neither had landed and they, they're like we can't do it, like there's no way.
Speaker 2:And it was the first half mile. And so they're like we're going to stay in camp. We're going to stay in camp. I'm like OK, ok. And so he's like just call us, text us, or you know, yeah, there's like any readjust when you're when you're like when you get, I'm like, ok, cool. And so Landon comes with me.
Speaker 2:And Landon was in pretty good shape, so he was, he was trying to push me to go up the hills. You know, he's just like come on, let's, we got to go. I'm like let's take it nice and easy, take it nice and easy. He's just like, let's go, let's go, let's go. He was all jacked up and I'm like I'd already hiked all the way out here, so I kind of knew what to expect. I'm like let's just take it easy, so, so.
Speaker 2:So we're going up the hill and we're going up the mountain on the shale and and I'm like I'm feeling my chest. I'm feeling my chest. I'm like, look at him like. I'm like did I have my binoculars on? And my buddy is like he's like what I'm like. So I have like the. I have the theories. There is vortex theories, the rain, shiny binoculars, and he's like. He's like I thought, I thought I heard something and I'm like I'm like you thought you heard, you thought you heard, and I'm like today. I'm like Like when we were walking up. He's like yeah, I'm like I thought about, I'm like man, I thought I heard like a rock fall all the way down to the bottom, like all that, like I mean a thousand foot down, like 1500 feet now, and I'm like sitting there and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him and I'm like I'm like we knew one of us, even like it didn't register for a mile.
Speaker 2:We just thought was a rock. You know. Well, turns out it was. It ended up being my binoculars and he's like don't worry, don't worry, I've got the ferries too. I'm like, okay, cool, you know, I didn't, actually didn't know that that he had him at the time, and so we, so we're still hiking up there and it's we're.
Speaker 2:We ended up going back and looking around in this these, this area, where I thought it fell off, and we're like we're just spending and it was just we're in a cloud, so the clouds would come over and like we couldn't see anything. I got a picture. I'll have to. I'll have to show a picture of this, yeah, but yeah, so we're, we're going through and it's like super thick clouds and I, I, my buddies were like, oh, it's really cool, it's nice and clear down here. There's only a cloud up where you're, where you guys are at, along the whole mountain range, like, oh, great, perfect, that's awesome. And so he sends me a snapchat. You know, I had service, he had service, so he sent me a snapchat and it's just like the whole mountain range is completely covered in in in clouds. I'm like, oh great. So I was like, oh, whatever, we'll still hike out there. You know, we'll camp out there if we have to.
Speaker 2:So we had left at 2 am and we had gotten to the. We had gotten like a couple like four miles in by. Like I want to say, it was like nine, nine o'clock or something like that. And yeah, it was brutal. It was brutal. I was.
Speaker 2:I was already beat from the first time I went in there and so we hiked along with the bottom portion of that ridge and kept moving along on the public side, you know, and and we get up to this point and and the clouds just like moved out, perfect, just for, just for a split second. They all just moved out and we could see quite a bit of this valley with shale and everything. And we look over and there's, there's a you ramp like a ram lamb, and In another, you and we were looking at them and they're across, they're across the valley from us and I'm glassing these, these sheep up, and I'm like looking at them. I'm like, okay, cool, cool, this is awesome. And I'm like, but you know, I'm gonna hold out like the one. You was really really big, she was really nice and I was like I'm gonna hold out, I'm not gonna shoot her yet, and she was like five, five hundred and something Meters by the way, meters away, that that'll come into play later yeah, and so we end up, we end up going up the the rock face and we get up to the spot and I look over and it's still cloudy and everything's kind of, you know, trying to clear up, not really, but it's it's still.
Speaker 2:You can see the sun, sunny on all the hillsides out in the background and you're just like it's perfectly sunny everywhere else. But where we're at, yeah, okay, and so we're like you know we're, we're up there, you know we're, we're probably at 13, I think we were at right at 13,000 feet and and we're sitting there, and so I was like I'll crawl down. So we crawled down probably about 200 vertical feet and Got just below some of the clouds and we're like on this big rock, like this big rock, and it's just like straight down. I mean it's like it's like Six or 700 feet, just straight down. It's unreal. I mean it was just like steep, some of the steepest country I've ever been in, and I like look over this thing and I'm like whoa? I'm like that's pretty far down there. So it starts to clear up and I see where you know, all those other sheep were supposed to be and I look and there's none, there's absolutely zero.
Speaker 2:And so this you and and the other two, they come up and I'm like looking at them and I look at this you and she looks, she looks super old. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like there's no other sheep. And then so they start, they start working their way up the valley and they were like gonna go shoot Up to the private. I'm like this is my shot, like I'm not like. I'm like this is my sheep hunt and I'm just like this if they go over onto the private, I don't I, because I think I thought that those were potentially the two. There is probably three of them there, but I just didn't see the other one because it's bedded and it was only those two. And so I was like, oh my gosh. So these were the three sheep. I saw their day. And if they go over, like Like, I don't know if I'm gonna find it anymore. So this, you just eat.
Speaker 2:So she, she starts heading up and I look at my buddy and I'm like, hey, can, can do. I'm like now, let's arrange it, let's range it. And that after I had him at like a hundred and six yards, but it was like, you know, it was like straight now, like if I would have shot her where she was at, she would have gone off that cliff and then completely busted out. There would have been nothing left of that sheep. So I Be just absolutely nothing. And so she works her way across and I'm like, can you range up for me? And he ranges it. He's like, yeah, it's 400 and something. I can't, I can't remember I've got on my video, because at the time I remembered, when I was editing the video, like the yard or the ranges. I'm like, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:And so I set in and I and I get ready, and I I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna wait for her to, you know, turn a little bit more. And she starts coming up. You know she starts coming towards us and then she stops. I'm like, all right, perfect, I shoot, completely, miss her. I'm like what in the world? I didn't know where I shot and I left whatever.
Speaker 2:I'm just like that doesn't make any sense. My rifle, my rifle, this should be dead on, like my rifle should be dead on, like I've shot this thing. You know seven, eight hundred yards, no problem, I'm like you know, it was like four hundred and something or maybe five hundred, and like it, I should have smoked that that you. And she starts running towards us and I'm like okay, well, she starts coming up the hill towards us and he ranges it again. It was four hundred and something there, I know that. And I'm like okay, and so she stops and I shoot and I and I shot the back of her flank and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like I felt so bad.
Speaker 2:I was like that just doesn't make any sense. I watched the bullet drop, like crazy, I'm like that just doesn't make any sense. So I rack another one in and I'm like, okay, and I just didn't even listen. I just corrected. I'm like I'm just gonna hold a little bit higher and I shot, and because she had like turned away from as I shot, I just smoked her. And I'm like, huh, that's just crazy. And so I'm like man, I like we're gonna start celebrating, I start screaming. You know she's down, everything's good. I'm like this is awesome, so great. And I'm like man, I just, I just don't understand why my yardage was all and he just like looks at me and he's like yardage and I'm like yeah, yardage, I'm like yeah, it was like four hundred and whatever yards. He's like oh, he's like, he's like, uh, I shoot meters and so he was ranging in meters and I was dialing in yards, so I was dialing my scope for yards and he was ranging in meters.
Speaker 2:So I was just that you know that, far off and probably with me. You know not, you know. Canting the rifle or whatever. You know. It was just like that. Yeah, it was Nice. It's like I looked at him like seriously, yeah, I'm so glad I got this sheet though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm the amazing you were able to just sort of aim high and figure it out and take that shot. So I saw this coming.
Speaker 2:Josh, yeah, so I did the math.
Speaker 1:I'm just taking. 450 is like if he were to say 450 yeah, and he's going meters, that means you were shooting 492 or that right that's. That's 492 yards, is the actual.
Speaker 2:Distance at 450 meters.
Speaker 1:So if you were showing 450 meters, you were only shooting 411 or, excuse me, 450 yards, you only shoot for 11. It's like a 40 yard difference is substantial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that those distances.
Speaker 2:It started. You start getting, you start getting, you know, and you know, a big more sheep. They're not very, you know, they're your chef, god, he isn't very big, yeah, you know. So it's just yeah. So that's what, that's what happened that one. But we end up getting down to her. We got some awesome pictures.
Speaker 2:Um, we, we grabbed her and we hiked down and we, uh, we were like, well, we're not hiking across that shale again. I'm like we're gonna go, we're gonna go down. There's a trail in the bottom Like we're gonna pray it's not blown over, you know, from the, because we could see all the blow over from everything, like everything was blown over, and so like we're just gonna hope. And, you know, try to push through this stuff. Because we were like all the elk hunter you know, elk hunting starts in like a couple days. So we're like, okay, the elk hunters are probably gonna be like moving through this stuff, cutting trees and, you know, actually trying to get through some of these, these trails that are legally accessible compared to the, the north side. And so we get down to the trail and, yeah, it was perfectly cut. Somebody had perfectly cut the thing because to get in there to elk hunt and yeah.
Speaker 2:So we had we started, we just hiked all the way down that, yeah, landon, landon got behind a couple miles after that. I was able to bet that because I had saved my energy. You know, he's spreading up these hills and I'm just like kind of walking, yeah. And then he, and then when we started packing out, he was just like he was dead. He was, he was pretty far behind me and I was dead too. But I sat there at the trail head and Leo, leo and Harley came up and they went. They went, they're like, oh, we're gonna go help him. And so Leo took off and he met him like a mile. He was like a mile and a half behind me and he helped.
Speaker 1:He grabbed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he grabbed the pack and just kept going. But yeah, he was just like he's like, oh, just go ahead, josh, just go ahead. He's like, just come back if you can try to help me, like okay, luckily Leo was able to go back in and grab his pack and help him out, so yeah, awesome that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry man. Yeah, I'm glad you killed that, that you, especially with that distance. But it takes a good hunter to do that. I can't guarantee that I would have accomplished the same thing under the same circumstances.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was, that was, that was terrible, but that's that's not it.
Speaker 1:So I Lost my Bino's I lost my binos you know, I lost there.
Speaker 2:They're almost two thousand dollars, like that's. Yeah, you know, they're 1500, I think now. But anyway, I I was like I'm gonna go try to find those things, like I'm gonna go hike up there and I'm gonna go look one more time, and so I I think the same day, like you got in.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. I was like.
Speaker 2:I'm dead.
Speaker 1:I Was done.
Speaker 2:No, this was the next morning, so I will. We went back to camp. I processed all the meat I you know, I all that stuff, and so I finished all that's all that. And I was like I gotta go look for these things. And I told these guys I'm like I gotta look for them.
Speaker 2:So I took the trail off and went down in there and I was like, well, I think this is where I remember you know that tumbling happening and I look and I'm just looking through. I'm like there's just rocks everywhere. I'm like there's no way, like I'm never gonna find these things. And so I just walked back and forth and back and forth up and down through these rocks and I'm like I just got exhausted. So I went down and I like started walking along, walk along the bottom, and and you know I'm, I sit there for a second, I'm just sighing like, and I just look over and they're my there, they are just set.
Speaker 2:They looked like somebody had just like said I'm there, looked like somebody had just set on there, like set them down there, and they were just laying on top of this rock. And I was like, oh my gosh, and they were. They were beat up like let me tell you, those things were beat up so I had to send them in. I sent them in before text, but they were. They're pretty big. Hey, karen, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, lifetime warranty. So you know there's awesome.
Speaker 1:There's real quick, like we're. When you looked through them, did they still range?
Speaker 2:I didn't. I didn't try it because the, the, the, so the inside, the glass was loose so I could shake, but I didn't try rain. No, I didn't try ranging them after that. No, you couldn't even really look through all. Okay, yeah, but they were, they were bill. Okay, yeah, they took a long. Yeah, man, I have a buddy who went hunting.
Speaker 1:We went elk hunting. It was two seasons ago. I fell on opening day and that up jacking up my back and I was out for months. But he went back out by himself, solo hunting, and he dropped a pistol. He doesn't remember when or how, but he combed for Days. Like he spent more time combing for that pistol than he did elk hunting and he did not find it.
Speaker 2:So you are lucky man cuz he knew, he knew like a rough area.
Speaker 1:But no he had no luck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know all my buddies they couldn't believe it. They're just like and I was back pretty quick, like it wasn't. It wasn't like I was. You know, I wasn't gone for like six or seven hours, I was gone for like three or four hours to get up back up to that. But I just I hammered down to that spot, I just tricking, just looked at the ground and just went right there but I just took water. You know, I took water. Basically I didn't take all my stuff that I, you know, did the first time and I didn't have my rifle with me or anything like that. I literally just took water and just my in reach and just went right down there.
Speaker 1:So that made it a lot easier, yeah well, that's a great story with a awesome like plus one happy ending, so that's a good one, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it's all, it's always awkward transitioning from story to story.
Speaker 1:But what else you got, man, these are great. So far, I'm enjoying myself and if that's it, we can wrap it right there. But if you got another one, you know I'm gonna listen to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I I guess I'll talk about a one of my Wyoming elk hunts. So I had a couple buddies. So any, okay, let me start over. Okay, so I've hunted this spot quite up quite a bit over the years. I've killed a lot of elk in there. I killed a bull in there this year actually, I killed a pretty nice bull in this spot and I was a fortunate to draw a tag again this year, and Nice Anyway, I this was a couple years back, but this I stopped hunting this spot in Like December and like December and January for cow season because of this.
Speaker 2:So I Invited a couple of my family friends out to come cow elk hunting and and they came out with me one year and they all filled their tags. Well, the next year they came out and none of them filled their tags, but I was fortunate enough to kill. I killed one cow, and so the story of how it goes is pretty crazy. So we, we had gotten permission to access this, some of this private land, and it was only 640 acres, so it wasn't very big, but it bumped up to some public land, another 640 that it bumped up to, and so you know, we had this air. We had this area where the elk, will you know, come down and winner and when, you know, I was pretty. You know they always come down there almost every year at some point and and luckily it for us that we hit just right and there were elk out in the one spot and but they were on a separate section of Private land. You know that that we couldn't get permission, for there's probably I want to say there's probably about a herd of 300 elk out there. It is pretty, is pretty big. It was. It was a nice herd of elk and they were soup like everyone on the highway could see him, and so we're sitting there, you know we're watching them. You know every, every, you know every. We went and hunted other spots and we're watching them. We're like, okay, you know, at some point they're gonna transition over onto the. It was landlocked public, so it was like they had that private section in the behind it was was the public. That was landlocked, so you couldn't even access it Unless you had permission on that private piece. And so we knew they were gonna start heading to that public at At some point. There's just a matter of time. And so we just waited. You know, we waited a day and then now they don't. They didn't come over but we were hunting other stuff and weren't having any luck.
Speaker 2:Like this is the herd. We, you know, kind of wanted to keep our eyes on and hunt 100%. And we come by and Back by and we just see the herd just running everywhere. I mean there, it's just. You know, normally when there's an elk herd, you know they're all, they all stick together. You know they're not just running crazy wild everywhere, we're just sit like, oh my gosh, why, why are these elk running everywhere? Well, we look over and there's two guys standing on the highway, you know, 500 yards away from these things, just boom, boom, boom, boom, just shooting away. I mean just flock shooting these things from 500 yards, private or the impr.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, the private. They're up there. All right, he's open, private. And so we're like what in the world? And we look and the guys have Wyoming plates and so they're residents. And we're like what in the world are these guys doing? So like we just assumed they had permission. And so we're like, okay, whatever, I guess. And so we we look back around there, start like some of the, some of the herds are starting to split off and go on to the public and then On to that private piece we had permission on. And so we work our way around and we get get over there and all of a sudden we just we just hear sirens and everything. And here comes, here comes a sheriff, here comes the game ward, one of the game words and then here comes, here comes some town cops from this one town up here hunting here.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just wild there. They're police coming out like crazy. We're just like what in the world? Why are the police coming out for this? You know, these guys are just flocks. You know they're just being dumb flocks. You know. And we're like, well, they must have shot. You know they must have shot a lot more than than they should have. And so we're looking out and, dude, we just start seeing wounded elk, bulls, cows, spikes, everything. Calves wounded.
Speaker 2:And we're like oh my gosh, it was bad, it was terrible. And we're just like looking at all these elk that are out there and we're just like, oh my gosh, and so none of these elk, like none of these elk, ended up actually coming on to the that public piece or that private piece and they're like, oh darn, and so we sat there and we're just like, oh, this is this is such a bummer. And and like, oh well, this is terrible. I guess we went up and talked with them and they're like, yeah, they fuckshot elk and each one of these this resident hunters. They each only had one cow, each cow tag each and they had shot bulls and spikes and cows and calves. And yeah, it was, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:I assume they, they, uh, they were Reprehender. What sort of look. I caught right, no I.
Speaker 2:I have. I have no idea whatever happened. I never heard, I never saw anything on the news. I never saw anything anywhere about it, nothing. That's crazy, I know, it just blows my mind. I, I, you know I should have asked the game word, the game word there again about what happened. But you know, I, I'm like I never, we never heard anything about it afterwards. So I mean it. I don't know what, whatever can transpire for that, but so crazy man, I actually have a similar experience.
Speaker 1:So when you're done.
Speaker 2:I'll remind me and I'll talk a little bit about mine. Yeah, so, anyway, we got. So so my buddies end up, you know they're, they're like, well, we're done. You know there's no other elk like these elk are gone. And so my buddies, they pack up, they leave, and I'm like, well, I'm in a hunt. You know I'm here, I'm gonna hunt.
Speaker 2:A couple of days and I started getting really cold, um, so I hunted. I hunted the next day out there and uh, I was on some, I was on a public, I was on another public chunk, um, out there hunting, and uh, I didn't find in a. I've ended up finding a cow. And I shot a cow and uh, lo and behold, it had already been shot. So Somebody they had already, you know, it was one of the ones that the guy had wounded. So the meat, meat, everything was still great. Um, so I was, I was content, but uh, at least got one of those out of the way.
Speaker 2:And some guy ended up shooting a, a giant bull right off the road. Um, that was wounded. I actually watched it happen. I pulled up and the bull looked like it was sleeping it, the bull literally looked like it was, it was or dead. I mean, it looked like it was dead but it was just sleeping and yeah, so the guy got out of the truck and started walking to it and because he wanted to go you know he wanted to go get the antlers and uh, the bull just jumps up and takes off, you know running, but he's wounded. And so, yeah, the guy gets out, grabs his rifle, the whole friggin runs out there. He didn't have it loaded or anything like he's trying to load his rifle.
Speaker 2:This bull just keeps running and he's just like he finally gets it loaded. And if this bull is like 300 yards out there and he shoots once it just drops the thing, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:There's a big bull, yeah, but he was like 360.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, so it was one of the ones that those guys he wounded, so he would have never got that bull if it wasn't for wasn't for that.
Speaker 2:But that was pretty cool watching that and then yeah, and then so, anyway, I, I get my cow and I'm like, well, I'm gonna go run up this other road just for the fun of it, I'm gonna go see if there's any up, look up here, and you know, just to let people know, or whatever, and just for fun. I just always just love going and running around. Well, I go up the road and I'm like I'm like, yeah, I hear a weird noise out of my truck. I'm like, oh, this is not good. And so like I'm like, oh, well, let's just go back to town. And it starts getting worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 2:Where's, oh man, I don't know what I did to my truck, but I messed it up going up this road to look at these elk. And I get, I get back to get back to the town and, yeah, I busted my CV axle completely and then it had broken into my. It had like broken into like underneath my ball joint it was. It was bad, like it just ruined everything in there. So I'm like, ah, great, but yeah, I ended up getting stuck there for with my elk. So I had of, I, I, I, I dragged her out on a sled, so I got it, or drag, dragged her out on a sled, which now I know I'll never do that, ever again. Um, I'm always, I'm always gonna quarter. I'm always gonna quarter them. I'll drag it out on a sled, but I'm always gonna quarter on. De bono have that done Because of this. So I bring this cow out on the sled, I put it on my, I put it on my truck and I'll have to find the picture because.
Speaker 2:But I'm like great, now I'm stuck here in the middle of Wyoming and Fun, fun thing is a blizzard just moved in and they shut down the interstate, they shut down the highways, they shut down every possible road to get in and out of here. And I'm like, oh my gosh, so no one can tell me, I can't get it repaired. The town's too small, it doesn't have a repair shop, and so I'm less like and I can't order in any parts. Obviously you can blizzards. So I'm like great, so I'm stuck here. So I sat there for like five days, I think it was, and one of the roads finally opened up. So one of my buddies from northeast Wyoming, hey we can't say that for five days.
Speaker 1:You mean in town, yeah, just like in your, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, no, I sat there. Luckily I was in town, I think it's. I didn't send my truck. I had stuff like that happen before but luckily not luckily it wasn't on this trip, but yeah. So my buddy drove down and and I still had this whole elk man, but I mean it was freezing cold, it was so cold and the snowy.
Speaker 2:But we we got, we got my truck and elk and brought it up there to northeast Wyoming and and I found a processor up there and and I just like, after everything that happened I'm just like I always process my own game for the most part and I was just like I'm just stopping this thing off at the processor, yeah, and it had been frozen solid and so he put it in the, he put it in the cooler he's. I just he's like I don't know what to do. He's like it's gonna take like a week or you know a couple days for this. I'm like, well, at least my truck's gonna get. You know, my trucks is in the process of being fixed. That's gonna take a while too. So I ended up get and I was able to get a rental truck. But yeah, that was a whole. That was a whole mess. But let me tell you the looks we got with my truck and I had like a, I had like a hitch and haul with my cow on it on the back of my truck.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did like a hitch and haul with my cow on the back of it and like it was on a. It was on a trailer and we were driving out of there and it's the looks I got or it was hilarious. That's. It was so funny. Yeah that's a hell of a story man.
Speaker 1:But um minus the hunter shooting. But like that reminded me.
Speaker 2:That happened to me once, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was third season rifle in Colorado, so like mid-early November and it's like opening day and we're hiking. We don't realize that there's roads everywhere. We could probably just drive our trucks. So we're hiking, we put in 15 miles a day. We're ridiculous. My hips have never hurt so bad because you got a high. Like everyone complains about downfall. Well, needy snow is the same thing as downfall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's 100%. It's in it's worse.
Speaker 1:I don't know that's not the story. The story is that, like opening day, we're walking up this hill and we're looking at this mountain won't name the mountain but a herd of like 400 elk come storming over this thing and we're just like in awe, like we were sitting there watching a coyote chase some, some mule there. We're like that's pretty cool. And we look to our left because we hear like thunder and it's a herd of elk Probably about a mile away, oh my gosh, just just Coming up and like from not being visible on the backside of the mountain up and over, and we're looking at this and all of a sudden we just hear gunshots and we see where the gunshots are coming from and these guys are just firing, firing, firing fire and they're probably I don't know how close your hunters were when they were firing like 1200 yards, is our guess.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, they were not close, they were just ripping bullets into this, into this herd. And we got up there eventually. We had to keep going, like hey, there's so many damn elk. I was like we'll just go up there and we'll follow their snow tracks, we'll eventually find something. So we hike up there, we get up there, we start seeing just blood everywhere. At one point, like four or five cows came charging out of the woods five yards from us and shot right in front of us and ran down into some other trees and we just heard trees snap in and crack and it was just absolute chaos. So I've lived an experience of guys just like ripping. I mean not yeah, shot but we're talking.
Speaker 1:I think we heard probably 40 rounds between three guys Absolutely insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not even know. I'm not even know where you're gonna hit.
Speaker 1:There's no way, and the distance they were shooting. I was like I couldn't shoot that that that distance if the animal was standing there. But these ones were just running. It was absolute, absolute chaos and gave me a just a disgusting feeling in my gut. And you probably felt similar when you oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and all they were picking all the elk they were picking up I mean, it was like they were the game and fish were picking up all these. Oh, it was like. It was just like it's crazy. What's crazy, is it just never? I, somebody should find something about this, like, or maybe an article I don't know how many of your listeners, like, are really good at digging stuff up but or, you know, maybe something that somebody was charged with with like multiple counts of shooting off a highway and like Shooting over the their bag limit and all that stuff. But I, like you'd think the news would have picked that up, like it would have been big news, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering the separation and this is something I don't know, but like the separation between like regular police Blotter and like because that falls under the game warden and not the police, I would have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, no, there were three game wardens there, yeah, and it was so.
Speaker 1:It was like is there like a game warden Blotter right, like you can see, the police have done. They post that in the newspaper. There's a police plot. Yeah we'll see what was done in the last. Whatever, but is there yeah equivalent For game wardens? I don't know. Yeah, I think you game warden on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that would be. It'd be interesting to know if there's something like that, that out there. That, yeah, cuz I would have. I would have loved to see what those guys ended up getting. Cuz it had to be. It had to be a lot.
Speaker 1:I would just like to hope that they don't ever have a hunting license ever again, like yeah, I mean it's just like crazy. At a minimum, at a minimum, yeah, yeah. Okay well, josh, that was another awesome story like yeah, you're not disappointing. I know you mentioned maybe you had a bear story. If not, we can just wrap it up and we can tell the people where to find you.
Speaker 1:I heard yeah, and you cubes and stuff, you tell me what do you want it? What do you want to do another story or wrap it up?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, I guess, I guess. Yeah, I don't know if I want to share that one.
Speaker 1:Save it for another episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got a man, I got a, I got a. Really I'll. I'll send you pictures of this one, but you're gonna be. Yeah, there's a really good one hunt story that I had about a hunt that I did down in Texas. But Okay, but yeah, I better get, I better get going.
Speaker 1:So okay, All right man.
Speaker 2:Let's do this then.
Speaker 1:Well, first off, I want to say thank you, josh. This was a ton of fun. Your stories are unique and entertaining as hell and I hope that you get on more podcasts after this. But let's tell the people where they can find you, man. So if people want to find Josh and see you know what you're up to because you're I mean I mean you had musk, ox and caribou, all sorts of other cool shit on your Instagram so tell the folks where they can find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm on Instagram as Joshua Sunberg, so my, my personal last name. You'll probably have this on that on the podcast itself. Look on the header, probably. So. If you literally, you literally just Google Joshua Sunberg or well, put an Instagram Joshua Sunberg, that's that's me, and then Joshua Sunberg on Facebook and Joshua Sunberg outdoors on YouTube.
Speaker 1:So Perfect man. And as usual, you know I'm gonna put all that stuff in the show notes, Make it really easy for people to find it. So go ahead and check Josh out like I said guys, he's got some crazy hunts way crazy, I mean. Yeah crazy stuff, you told us, but you've got some awesome hunts and you've been doing it a long time, so just thank you for your time, man, I really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, man, I think maybe we'll have to do another episode in the future. What we'll run that Texas one by me and see if it's appropriate to post out to everybody. Yeah, sounds good, alright, man. Thanks again. Yep, thank you, Alright, guys. That's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again.
Speaker 1:I want to thank Josh, of course, for coming on the podcast, especially on such short notice. I had a lot of fun talking to him and it's a crazy world, but we probably live less than 40 minutes. Which other one in Colorado? It's a small world. But yeah, josh, thank you again for coming on. Thank you for sharing your stories. Can't wait to head back on because I know you got plenty of more stories for us. That being said, guys, check them out. All of his Instagram socials are right there in the show notes. And, while you're there, check out our Instagram page. Make sure you give us a follow and then, whatever, you're listening to the sun right now. If you would go and review the podcast, give us more ratings means more people are likely to find us, so if you just hire up in the search results. So that's it, guys. Thank you very much. I appreciate you all for tuning in now. Uh, get out there. Thanks for your.