When Brett Thompson recounted his first hunting trip, where an elusive banded duck almost met its match, I knew our listeners were in for a treat. Each of his stories, woven with the fabric of family and tradition, brings the wilderness of Idaho alive with an authenticity that only a true outdoorsman can convey. From an emotional tribute to a gun-loving uncle to the unexpected success facilitated by day-old bread for bear baiting, Brett's tales are a reminder of the deep connections and spontaneous moments that make hunting an unforgettable adventure.
When Brett Thompson recounted his first hunting trip, where an elusive banded duck almost met its match, I knew our listeners were in for a treat. Each of his stories, woven with the fabric of family and tradition, brings the wilderness of Idaho alive with an authenticity that only a true outdoorsman can convey. From an emotional tribute to a gun-loving uncle to the unexpected success facilitated by day-old bread for bear baiting, Brett's tales are a reminder of the deep connections and spontaneous moments that make hunting an unforgettable adventure.
Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and as usual, we got another great one for you today. I'm gonna keep the intro's now for a short and sweet because I have a cold, but today we're hearing some great stories from Brett Thompson. Brett is a listener who was brave enough to reach out and he shares some pretty amazing stories with us today. So I hope you guys enjoy Brett. Thank you again for tuning in or not tuning in, but reaching out and thank you, guys for tuning in. Now let's go ahead and let Brett tell you his stories.
Speaker 1:Alright, brett, welcome to the hunting stories podcast. Brother, how are you Good, are you? I am doing well, man, I'm doing well. I want to thank you for reaching out to me, man. You reached out to me, I think, the week before I ran off into the Elk Woods and you were like I got some great stories and I'm like put a pin in it. You know I'm about to disappear for a week and a half, but I do want to hear your stories, and then you reach back out to me, man. So thank you very much for staying on me and joining me here on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's been a long time coming, but I'm excited to be here and excited to share a few stories.
Speaker 1:Perfect man, perfect. Well, let's get this thing off the way we always do. Brett, why don't you start by introducing yourself, so that people know who's telling them some stories today?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, my name is Brett Thompson. I'm from a small town southeast Idaho. I don't know all my life I kind of thought I'm not too much of a hunter. But now I look back at it and I realize how much I've actually kind of kind of done, thinking of different stories in different places that I've been.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Been doing it for a while, I think now so.
Speaker 1:Well, when did you pick it up, brett, like when was the? First time did your dad get you started when you were a kid, or Actually?
Speaker 2:that kind of I was seeing where I wanted to start with stories and that actually kind of leads right into it. So let's just go there then, perfect. Yeah, I kind of. My first experience of hunting was kind of crazy actually. So here in Idaho at least the part of Idaho I'm in it gets like really cold. Yeah, that's probably I don't know 13 or 14 is probably how old I was, might have been 12, I can't remember exactly, but I was dying to go duck hunting and I kept just begging my older brother to take me. Well, I guess I better better stop for a second and let you know this. So I'm, I'm the second youngest of four brothers, so I okay, I have two sisters, but there's there's four boys, so I got three brothers Oldest an army.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of oldest is Nathan, and he's probably he's in his low 30s, I think he's 32. And then I have an older brother, spencer's 26, and then I'm 24 and then I got a little brother, the baby, who's about 21 now. But Luke, luke, he's the baby. But with that being said, all my stories are kind of mostly based with my brothers and so goes back to that that duck hunting story. So my older brother, nathan, he was at the time he was the only one that had a driver's license, yeah, and we had been begging him to go duck hunting and school actually got canceled. So it gets so cold here that that school gets canceled. I think it's around like negative 30 school school get canceled. That is cold. Okay, yeah, yeah, it's freezing.
Speaker 2:So school got canceled that day and I came to him that morning and I'm like, hey, we don't have to go to school, can we go duck hunting? And him being a good big brother, he's like, yeah, sure, let's go grab your, grab your waiters, get your shotgun and we go get out there in the blind and we go just down to the river here locally and we get set up and me not ever duck hunting before in my life, right, we get the, we get the decoys thrown out, we got our spread and we sit down in the blind and not more than just like a few minutes later, we got a mallard locked up on us and he's coming in and my, my older brother, nate, he's. He's like all right, here's the duck, it's coming in, get ready, get your shotgun up. He's like it's coming, it's coming. He's like you got to take it, you got to shoot, you got to shoot. And I jump up and I'm like I didn't know where the duck was, because the whole time he's telling me you know, look at the water, don't be looking at the birds, you'll scare him off. And then finally I look up and I don't, I don't see the duck at all. So he just jumps up, not letting the bird get away. He shoots the duck and and hands up running out there to grab it.
Speaker 2:And little did I know. He comes running back and he's just screaming, hyped, as loud as he could be, and he was like he's like I got a banded duck, I got a banded duck and me not knowing anything, I'm like, yeah, sweet, I'm like at the time I didn't even know what a band was and he was just hyped. But then like to think about that if I would have been, if I would have been fast enough and and actually seen the duck come in, my very first duck, very first kill, would have been a banded duck and that would have been amazing yeah, for us down here in this corner of the state, I mean, we we just don't get, we don't get the migration too much.
Speaker 2:And yeah, yeah, I still I've ducked on it a lot nowadays and still never got a band. But uh, it's just kind of crazy to think like my very first duck could have been a banded that's crazy.
Speaker 1:So let me ask did your brother call it in and find out some of the information about that bird?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, so that one was like, if I remember, like four or five years old, came from Canada, oh cool, so it's pretty much just like straight north of us in Canada, but yeah, yeah, it was pretty sweet that's amazing, man I.
Speaker 1:So the podcast that's come out before this one. It's not out yet, so you haven't heard it, but it's with Jesse Griffith. I'm not sure if you know that he's a chef out of Austin.
Speaker 1:I don't know but he he shot a banded turkey with, like I think, his first turkey hunt and one of his first turkey hunts, if not his first one, but it's funny because like that bird had gone like three quarters of a mile from where it had gotten banded, compared to yours which came you know all of them Canada yeah, I mean it's still something cool, it's? Super cool.
Speaker 2:I mean my me and my brothers, between the, between the four of us, we funded a lot and I think we've only ever pulled out two bands that's my man my other spencer, the one just older than me, he ended up getting a band a few years ago and we ended up mounting that duck and yeah, yeah, it's just good experience.
Speaker 2:But along with my brothers, I was gonna share kind of a story, my my first successful deer hunt, which of course, is with with my brothers, like always, right, yeah, so I was, I guess, to start with this, I I should have some video of this because I got both of these bucks sitting behind me right now but my little brother drew a Wyoming mule deer tag. I don't even remember when it was, when it was um few years back, and he ended up going up to this, to this spot, to find a find a buck and long, well, yeah, long story here. But, um, he ended up getting in there to to find a big buck in Wyoming to draw that Wyoming tag. It's pretty hard, um, I forget what unit it is, but it's it's here kind of kind of close.
Speaker 2:I live about a mile off the, off the Wyoming border okay but he, uh, he ended up drawing this tag right and we're hunting ground that we've never really been able to hunt before. And he went up and him and my older brother, nathan, got back into this, got back into this, uh, this big basin, and and started hunting and, uh, they ended up finding a big four by four that uh was clear across the canyon and, long story short, they ended up getting over there to try and take a shot at this, at this big buck. And it took all day to kind of stalk in and get close enough to this big, this big deer. And that day that just dumped like three feet in a high country. Yeah, and he, finally, they finally get over there, to that, to that ridge where that big buck was.
Speaker 2:And they're working across trying to trying to just find him, trying to get on that same hillside that they might be able to get a shot off. And, uh, as, as they were going, they ended up bumping a buck. But well, he's a indecent three by four, um, with a little kicker off the back, but he's still in velvet. And when, when my little brother, luke's son, he, uh, he bumped him out of his bed and his velvet was half rubbed off, so that piece of velvet was sticking straight out the side of his head first, like like off the side of his horn looked like a giant kicker, like like oh really like a nice kicker.
Speaker 2:So they're going in after this big four by four and he sees this. He sees four on one side and all he sees is this nine inch kicker that goes straight out on the other side and he, uh, before he even knows, he's like game plan completely changed. We're shooting this buck. He's right here in front of us and he pulls up, boom, shoots this buck and and ended up dropping it. They go get up on it and, uh, I mean it's, it's a great beer. It was his first, first deer and, yeah, when he finally got up and got his hands on it, he looked and he was like, oh, that nine inch kicker that I thought was was just a piece of velvet sticking out.
Speaker 1:That's too funny that dried out.
Speaker 2:But, uh, I gotta tell that story because I ended up drawing that same tag the year after, right, um, which is just kind of crazy, honestly, that that we think uh, I don't know if you know the actual draw odds, but if you had to guess what, what are the draw odds on that tag? Oh, I think they give out I don't know 200 of them or so, um. So it's not like crazy, crazy hard here where I'm at somebody I know almost every year draws one um, but it's only like two, three, maybe you'll get four guys that'll draw the tag from here locally.
Speaker 2:Um, so yeah, it's, it's fairly low, fairly low odds, I think. Um, but yeah, so I ended up drawing that tag the next year and my older brother, nathan, uh, he volunteered to take me and to to guide me, which I kind of felt bad um riding in. So we, we ended up getting up in the morning first day of the hunt, right?
Speaker 2:and we're, we're riding up the trail. We got there early, we, we both had our four-wheelers and we're we're riding up on our four-wheelers and, uh, we're running late, like always, you know, yeah and uh trying to beat the sun and right where right where hunting would start to get good, because it was all timbered up for most of the trail and it's probably, I don't know, five, six mile long trail.
Speaker 2:Um, right when we were about to get to the top, right where it would open up and you can start seeing again, uh, we ran into a father and son that were hiking and my heart just kind of like dropped for him. You know, because here's us, like, right when the sun's about to to crest over, we come roaring past them on the four-wheelers and, uh, and by then we'd already been riding, I mean, like a good 40 minutes on the four-wheelers. And just to think, these guys probably hiked from the trailhead, they probably started like two o'clock in the morning, so they were hunters that were hiking.
Speaker 1:I, for second, I thought we were just talking about hikers out there in the middle of the night and I'm like what the hell? But there are hunters that just got out way before you hunters, yeah, hunters.
Speaker 2:In the morning that got out way before us poor guys they thought they'd be the first guys up there and like, right when they were about to be able to hunt I mean I'm talking like five minutes we come busting right past them.
Speaker 1:I'm like oh man.
Speaker 2:I felt bad. But we, uh, we ended up getting set up real quick. We start glassing and, uh, glassing right over that same spot that my little brother shot that buck the year before, yeah, and probably like quarter mile from where he had shot that buck um, we end up spotting this spot in the spear and, uh, man, it's beautiful. I don't know. Actually, I've heard you say before you just love mule deer, right.
Speaker 1:I do love mule deer. I think they're, they're cool as hell, but I've never actually hunted one. Well, that's not true. I've had a mule deer tag while I was elk hunting and I chased. I've chased some does, but I've never been on a buck and it's it's real high on my bucket list. In fact I'm starting to save up some points. I know a pretty good spot that isn't reasonable for rifle, uh, for rifle mule deer, and so I think about three, two to three years from now, I should be drawing that tag yeah, I mean, dude, I love mule deer.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's, it's my biased opinion. Mule deer are 10,000 times cooler than white tells. I mean we got both here. But yeah, mule is something about them, man. I just where they live, what they do, how they live. I just love. I love mule deer.
Speaker 2:And, uh, we get set up that morning, we start glassing and we see, we see a few small bucks, like two, three small bucks, and we're watching them. We're like trying to try and eye up because it is a pretty good tag. You know, I don't want to shoot like them small little bucks. Uh, I mean my whole family, we're all meat eaters, we'll just we hunt for, hunt for food most of the time. But if you draw a good tag, I mean you kind of need to go after a good buck and make it worth it.
Speaker 2:Um, and we're, we're glassing these smaller bucks and watching them and I'll never forget this dude in in my glass I'm, I'm on the spotter looking and this buck, he comes out and it was like, right when the sun a little later in the morning, and the sun was kind of coming over the hill and it was going down the hill more and he dipped his head under and he's got a big, beautiful four by four rack and he dips his head under and kind of turns underneath of a, underneath of a bush, and one side comes up and the sun hit it and it just lit up as bright as I could be, that's cool and then the other side turned over and that other side just lit up in like his rack just finally hit the sunlight and it was just like one ray of beam hit his horns.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was beautiful and it was like right, that second I threw all this roll. We left it sitting there. I'm like Nate, you got to get over here, look at this, look at this buck. And uh, and he was like yeah, dude, that's a shooter. He's like let's go. He's like we're ready for it let's go and, uh, we'd back.
Speaker 2:We we packed on all of our stuff and we were gonna leave our, leave the four-wheelers, and then we were gonna put camp like two, three miles, uh, further than what we could do on our four-wheelers.
Speaker 1:So we left our four-wheelers.
Speaker 2:We're like, okay, we're gonna get in here on this buck. And it's like a mile away, right across this huge basin, and we're like, well, we can't really. I'm like, do we drop down to the bottom and lose a ton of elevation just to gain a ton of elevation again trying to pack our camp with us? I'm like, is that the right move, you know? And we're like, no, let's, let's keep our elevation. So we're about at the top, but we could loop back around on the top of this rim and kind of work, work down this ridge and get over to him.
Speaker 2:And uh, so we decided to do that and we ended up backpacking our camp in there and and we set up our camp and then we kept going down that ridge to try and find this buck. And uh, we get right in there where we thought he was right, where he, uh, where we thought he was gonna be, and we set up and we start glassing, and and by then we're like, I mean, we're talking a ways that we've gone, and yeah, we're mid-afternoon by now. And uh, and we're like, well, what do we do? What's our, what's our move? And you know how it is, honey, you try and you try and always just strategize everything and figure out, figure out how to do it right yeah?
Speaker 1:sometimes overthink it, sometimes under thinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were probably overthinking it and we end up setting up in this little saddle and I'll never forget this, this this whole day, because, uh, sitting up there with my brother that's like the best part of it you know is is being out there with your brother and we're sharing stories with each other and whatnot, and we're trying to figure out this problem together on how to, how to conquer this big old mealy. And uh, we get, we get set up and we're just waiting. We're waiting in the saddle and neither one of us had really killed a mature buck before. So we're trying to, we're trying to figure it out, you know, um, and we're just we wait and wait and for me, being a young guy, I thought I was waiting forever, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, uh, I realized we only have just a little bit of time left. And I'm talking to Nate. I'm like dude, that buck's gone, he's not here. I mean we're, we're right where they were at. He's not going to come out. We got to do something different and at one point during the day we ended up spotting those other smaller bucks that were with him.
Speaker 1:So, we're.
Speaker 2:We're trying to keep hope that he'd still be in the same area. Um and we're. I lost hope. I totally threw in the towel.
Speaker 1:I've been there. I've been there. You're like let's leave. Yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm like, dude, let's do something better with like the last 40 minutes of light. You know, I'm like he's not going to come up on this hillside, we've got to go over. I'm like we can go look into this other basin real quick and we might be able to find a different buck. This, this thing's gone. Um, and well, I guess I better throw in another, another kind of sweet part of this whole hunt Um, my, my dad has one brother, who he's?
Speaker 2:He's an old guy now. He's an old, older, older man, but he's a gun freak. He loves guns and he's got 11 kids and I think seven sons is what. What he's got, whoa Tons of kids, yeah, yeah, and he'd give him. He has like I don't even know how many guns he's got. He just loves gunsmithing, loves, loves working on rifles, and he ended up finding it's a Kimber Kimber hunter. They're pretty lightweight gun. Um, he fell in love with them and just how, how they shot, and he, he made up some ballistics for us and made, made up some new rounds and uh, I got it, got it Zipping with a nozzler hacky bond and uh, yeah, just made, made a good load.
Speaker 2:But my uncle kind of came to me one day and, uh, he looked at me and he was like you know what? I got all these guns and I'm getting older in life and I'm going to die and I can't take these guns with me. He goes. I I realize that and I'm getting older, but he goes. I've already given everyone of my, my sons, multiple guns and he goes. I only have one brother and I want to give you and all your brothers a gun and he's like you drew this, you drew this tag. That is a big deal. And he goes. I want you to be successful. So he's like I'm giving you this, this hunting rifle, and he goes.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:He goes, and it was. It was kind of one of those moments with my uncle that I I cherish. You know that he, he just wanted to give each and every one of us brothers, uh, a gun, because he's loved guns so much all his life. Uh, so that's what I had. I had that gun that he gave me and I'm up there with my brother, I'm like it's just what you want hunting to be, you know? Yeah, and uh, so back back to where I was saying I'm about to throw in the towel, sitting up on this ridge with my older brother, and, uh, I'm like, nate, let's go, let's pack up. And he's like, okay, we can pack up.
Speaker 2:And I start throwing my bags, cause I fell asleep, you know. So I'm like jacket, tucking it back in my bag, and he just stops and he goes. He goes down, downhill, downhill, downhill, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And I'm like what? And I turn my luck, 120 yards from us, right in our saddle, this big buck that we spotted that morning walked right out in the bottom and I got my rifle right next to me and I grabbed it.
Speaker 2:And I remember, because I'd never hunted before, right, well, I'd never been successful at hunting before and my brother kept telling me I remember like going through the whole day cause we knew he was a giant buck and uh, he's like, okay, don't look at the horns. He's like you got to focus, narrowing on on a good shot. Make sure you have your good shot placement. He goes, I'll tell you what buck to shoot. And he goes, you don't even look at the horns, cause I don't want you to get nervous. So he says you just you focus on that front shoulder crease. And he goes we need you to make a good shot, cause nothing matters if you don't make a good shot.
Speaker 2:And so I remember him saying that and I set up and he just said, like that's a big buck, shoot it. And I pulled up and he walked right behind the tree and, uh, didn't even look at his horns and by this time I'd like I'm done, you know, I'm ready to go home, I give up in. This big old buck walks right out. And I had to put one right behind the shoulder. Boom, smoked with that rifle my uncle gave me and he piled up and whiplash so hard, his horns, the back tines of his horns, were stuck in the dirt. When I ended up, when I ended up getting down there, I pulled them, I pulled them up and I I didn't even realize how big of a bucket was and, uh, after everything is said and done, we ended up taping them out. He's 170.
Speaker 1:That's awesome man. Dude that's that's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for a, for a person you'll dare on like a little little spoiled for sure, for sure, for sure, I probably will never even see a 170.
Speaker 1:You'll do that. That's, that's amazing. And there's some lessons in there, right? I know that I personally struggle with the. When it's like 30 minutes of light left, you're like, ah, I could hunt my way back to the camp. But man, I know for a fact I've missed opportunities.
Speaker 1:One time I was sitting again big, big open draw, my buddy sitting at one end of it looking at another draw. I'm watching this draw and I just get tired and I get cold and I'm just miserable. You probably feeling the exact same way that you felt, and so I I text him, cause we have a little bit of service and I'm like I'm going to head out, I'm going to walk back to camp. I'm not feeling it right now. I head back to camp and he comes. He gets there like an hour and a half later. He's like a bear bear which I had a bear tag, it's like walked up on him to like 15 feet. He did not have a bear tag, but it came up where the only way it could have gotten there is by walking right through what I was hunting.
Speaker 1:So if I had just sat there for another 30 minutes, I would have killed my first bear so good on you for sticking around but, like everyone listening, just stay till dark Like it's scary, sure, but whatever, like the most action is going to happen in that time that you want to spend hiking back. So yeah. I'm glad that you got that buck, man, that's, that's super cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which there's just something about that, about being with your brother, I mean, there's, there's definitely something special about that. We ended up, we ended up packing that buck out that night for some reason. And yeah, sorry, one last one, last little part of that story. But then walking out, walking out, I remember, cause I forgot my hiking sticks. Yeah, have you started using hiking sticks yet?
Speaker 1:I, you know, I've used them and they make such a big difference in the. The. Actually the point maybe you've heard me talk about Western hunt fest, which is an event we have here in Colorado run by the, the pack amount of peril boys. But we did this thing and it's a simulated pack out. So you got to get, like I don't know, 250 pounds plus your bow, plus a rack, and at the time the course was longer, it was like a three mile course. They shortened it since, but we did it and my buddy brought his and I didn't bring mine. The first loop we took one. The second loop we dumped our stuff, put in the new weight because we had to get some different weights in there, and then got going and he took both of his sticks and I didn't. And I was like this is awful, like why is this so much harder? I'm doing 30 pounds less than I just did. And it's those sissy sticks, man, you gotta have them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sissy sticks. I love that. That's what I thought Like all my life. I'm like I don't need hiking sticks, that's just extra weight. I don't need to pack that and on this hunt I didn't, I left them.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:My big brother being a big brother, you know, he ended up giving me his when I had a full pack and man, they helped just so much and we ended up fighting out so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even just one man. I'm telling you one makes a difference. My buddy and I have not done that Pack Out Challenge since because last year I ended up getting COVID the same week that it was going on, so I ended up not being able to fly out and go to it. But I'm excited to do it sometime where we both have our sticks, because I think our time will be a lot better. It was not very good that first time.
Speaker 2:They help? Yeah, they definitely help, but and then sorry, I'm a little bit of a scatterbrain.
Speaker 1:That's fine.
Speaker 2:You're talking about bears, bear hunting. That kind of leads me in my next and walking out late at night. I got into bear hunting in high school pretty hard, and can you guys bait bears where you're from?
Speaker 1:No, colorado, you cannot bait oh.
Speaker 2:Idaho, idaho, you can bait, you can, you can put out a barrel and bait bears in. So I did that, not knowing how to do it, and I just kind of went down, bought my bait, permit, my tags and whatnot.
Speaker 1:That had no clue.
Speaker 2:I talked to a few local guys that give friends of mine that had done bear hunting and I asked them hey, how do you do, how do you bait bears, what do you do? And all this. And I ended up actually going down to a local bakery and I don't know if this is, I don't know if I should say it or not, but they have day old bread that they're just throwing out. And I went and told them I'm like, oh, can I get some bread to feed my chickens? And they were all in for oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, take it, take it. And I'm bringing like five, six big trash bags full of bread home every day and every other day and I just kept putting it in my bear bait. But I knew I knew if they knew I was feeding bears with it, they probably wouldn't have been too happy, so I told them chickens.
Speaker 2:but yeah, that's funny. I filled my bait with day old bread and I threw a bait out and didn't know what I was doing. Got a barrel, cut a hole in it, strapped it to a tree, put a trail camera on it and I put a bait out. I think I was like what was it? Probably Friday, I put a bait out, checked it Sunday afternoon and I had seven bears hitting it no way.
Speaker 1:I was curious because baking bread smells awesome but like day old bread does not all that smelly and I know people put like molasses and fish and all sorts of crazy shit in their barrels so I was curious if the bread would work. But that's awesome. Seven.
Speaker 2:Well, I do so. I still put like syrup and molasses and everything in it. But what that bread?
Speaker 2:does is that bread will actually fill them up and get them full. So they don't just empty your barrel every day, is what I thought. But they were still emptying my barrel every day, fatten them up and that kind of goes along with this story. But so I don't really hunt on Sunday, right, and I wouldn't check my camera on Sunday, but I'm not gonna shoot a bear on Sunday trying to be good, you know, and my older brother, spencer, the one just older than me, I come home and of course I'm like showing them pictures or breaking it down.
Speaker 2:We're trying to figure out when we can get out there and at this time I'm still playing football. You know, I'm still in high school and I have practice right after school and I have like 40 minutes of light left in the day once I'm done with practice and we're looking at these bears. I'm like how do I get there tomorrow? I'm like I need to start sitting, I need to get in that tree stand to shoot a big bear.
Speaker 2:And Spencer, my older brother, was pretty much just like, well, if you're not gonna sit it, I am. And he grabbed her older brother's bow, nathan's bow, went down, bought a bear tag. He didn't even have a bear tag. He goes down, buys a bear tag and goes and jumps in my tree stand while I'm at football practice and he didn't know what he was doing, but he was just like this will be cool, grabbed a bow, got up in there and I think it was like an hour and a half after he had bought a bear tag he had a little bear come in and smoked it like that that's amazing, you know.
Speaker 1:And so he had a little one.
Speaker 2:You said A tiny, well yeah.
Speaker 1:Compared to the bear. I don't remember whose podcast it was, excuse me, but I remember somebody yelling who shot a dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a tiny little bear. I was seeing about that. I listened to that podcast the other day and I went back to my brother and I was like, who shot a black lab? And I was like, oh, spencer did it. But he didn't know what he was doing. He'd never really seen a bear up close and stop, you know, and he shot the very first one that came in. And the kicker is, he shot it and of course he calls me and he's freaking out Dude, I just smoked a bear, I just smoked a bear off your barrel and as he was like on the phone with me, this freaking giant comes walking in and oh, just a giant, and he's kicking himself. I can't believe I shot this cub when there's just this giant bear it wasn't literally a cub, but just compared to the other bear, tiny, and he's kicking himself. He's like I can't believe I shot this tiny bear. But yeah, it was just funny.
Speaker 1:That's too funny, man. Let me ask you. So I know that I guess it's maybe some counties in Idaho, because I've talked with one of my former guests, eric Boone, about coming up to Idaho and hunting. He's like you get a tag, you get, I think, two bears. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Is that county by county thing, or I've never heard two bears, but you can buy a bear tag and hunt either the spring or fall season. We have a spring bear and a fall bear and if you're not successful on one you can hunt the other off the same tag. I know that maybe in different parts of the state you might be able to shoot two. I know you can buy like an out of state tag and a resident tag and do it. Out of state tags just cost a lot more so a lot of people don't do it. But yeah, no, I'm not too, sure about that.
Speaker 1:All right, I'll check in with him, but cool man that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It's funny that a giant bear walked in right after he shooted a lab and I ended up going in there like two days later and I set up and, sure enough, this big old bear came walking in and it was so cool. Have you ever sat a tree stand before?
Speaker 1:No well, not for bear for hogs in Texas.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, you know little squirrels down there in Texas, do you?
Speaker 1:Oh man, they got everything.
Speaker 2:in Texas Depends on where you are.
Speaker 1:There's so many different like types of landscape out there. You can get like pine areas. I've definitely. They definitely do have squirrels in Texas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you, man, it kills you Sitting in the bear stand, because bears come in so quiet and every little squirrel and a tree next to you you're like freaking out thinking that there's a bear coming in, you know, and I've been in the Colorado Elk Woods and you're hanging out and they've got their trees so they climb to the top and start throwing things down at you.
Speaker 1:I've experienced the squirrels. It's amazing how noisy they can be. Here's actually a funny story. We were hunting for Whitetail in Texas near your Lindale, and we didn't have any luck. No deer, but there were constantly squirrels, constantly making noise. And so my buddy goes. He's like, well, I'm gonna go kill some squirrels. He takes his shotgun. He's like I'm gonna go out and shoot some squirrels. And of course, as soon as he changes his mind from hunting deer to shooting squirrels, not a peep didn't see a squirrel like it's just they're. They're good at what they do.
Speaker 2:That's how. That's how it definitely goes. Yep, that's how it goes, but yeah, sitting in, sitting in the stand waiting for bears is a is a lonely time. Luckily, I think it was actually my first day sitting in the stand. I, uh, I ended up having a, a bear, come in and I didn't really know how to like judge bears, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um and I had a bear walk in um but I had a, I guess, again scatterbrained me. Going back, I have an older, an older friend who's a hunting freak. I mean he, he's hunted everything everywhere.
Speaker 2:He's probably in his mid 60s, but just a good old guy and I went over to his, to his house one day and he's got like this half shoulder mount with this nasty little cub that he said he was walking into the bait one day and it charged him in the sun and he ended up shooting this little cub and he mounted it and I was like right, I was like why would you, uh, why would you mount just a tiny little bear? And I'm like what's the point of that? And he looked at me and he was. He was like you know what, sometimes in hunting it's not about the trophy, it's about the story. And he goes. Yeah, every time I look at that bear, I remember just the adrenaline rush that I got with my sons and and going into the bear bait and he goes. I'll never forget that feeling of being in there with your boys and not knowing what's gonna happen and he goes.
Speaker 1:That's what hunting is about and uh, hell yeah, you gotta introduce me to this guy, he gets it.
Speaker 2:He is. I could go on for a year about just absolutely insane stories that this guy has from Africa to freaking Bahamas. I mean everything in between Bahamas, cool. Okay, it's like we'll get on and tell some reg stories one day. We'll just we'll give a whole episode just for him, but uh, I gotta.
Speaker 1:I mean it's it's. It's making it sound like you're gonna tell his stories. Is he still with us or is he? Is he passed away? He is?
Speaker 2:he is still here, but I don't know if you could get on and tell stories. He's kind of one of those old guys.
Speaker 1:Oh, let's get him on here, man.
Speaker 2:He's one of those older guys that just kind of he doesn't like the, he doesn't like the light of things, and you kind of have to push him a little bit and then as soon as you kind of poke him, he opens up and starts telling stories and it's just like, oh my gosh, like how did you do that? And yeah, just crazy, crazy, crazy stuff.
Speaker 1:I feel like I need to get the uh the ability to like record locally so I can like travel around and meet those kind of guys that like don't want to jump on a podcast. And my father-in-law is part of the reason I started this whole thing. He has passed away, but he's like I don't get it. Like what do you want to do like? Uh, like he just didn't understand the idea of a podcast. So, like, just getting together with some of these old timers, going to headset on them and letting them tell their stories, I think is probably the way to go about getting some of those classic stories.
Speaker 2:I'll, uh, I'll work on them a little bit and see if, see if we can get him to go on. But uh, yeah, back to my, back to my bear story. The. The wise words of rad came to my head, man, when I was sitting in that bear stand and I had a big bear come in and he's digging through the digging through the barrel and uh, I'm trying to shoot this thing with a bow right and never actually had eyes.
Speaker 2:I ended up. Yeah, no, this was, this was my very first archery kill. I ended up shooting a, shooting a bull out with my bow that same year. But, but yeah, this, this bear was before that.
Speaker 2:Um, I draw back and as I drew back, my broad head ended up catching a leaf in front of me and this bear pulled his head up out of the barrel and turned and he had a huge loaf of bread in his mouth and he got up and his his two front paws.
Speaker 2:He got up on top of my, on top of my barrel and he's just like stretched up as far as he could and started looking left and right trying to find me, because he could like just barely hear. And when he, when he went up, that's when, like, reg's words came into my head and I'm like man, it's about the story. I'm like there's something just cool about seeing this bear standing up with a huge baguette as I think what it was in his mouth, and I just let it go and double lung and smoke and he took off, ran and I mean, we tracked him for tracking for a ways, but he ended up dying like pretty close to my barrel. But he made like a loop clear back and around and and down and man, that's, yeah, chasing.
Speaker 1:Chasing a wounded bear in in the bush is always a always a nerve-wracking experience, especially when you shoot him at, uh, at the end of the day, where the the sun goes down. Now you're doing it at night time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, but I'm like I forget how well I am probably 15 at the time I call my brothers and I'm like you got to get down here.
Speaker 2:We got to, we got to get this bear out of here and, uh, we all end up, uh, strap it, we duct tape like flashlights to end up a shotgun and we're yeah, we're going going through like this low-cut brush trying to find the blood trail and and we're just, uh, yeah, trying to find it, but we all got a shotgun and we're just like waiting for the bear to charge us.
Speaker 2:You know but, yeah, I made a good. I made a good shot. After the fact I realized now I heard him crash. Like maybe a minute or two after I shot he piled up, but I didn't really know that that was a crash, you know yeah, you're kind of a moment until later. Yeah, but uh man. I just love, love it, love, love. Did you, did you get to hear the uh man.
Speaker 1:So this is bears high on my bucket list of animals to hunt. Did you hear its death moan?
Speaker 2:that's something I've always wanted to experience so I didn't, but our other brother did so okay. I ended up shooting to be a little quick on the story. But, uh, I ended up shooting a big bore. But that giant bear that my older brother choked on was still out there and it was huge. It was a huge sal, I mean, she was just giant and that's cool my, my younger brother Luke. He was like well, it's my turn.
Speaker 2:You guys both killed bears and uh, he got right back in the same tree stand like two days after I I shot that bear and, uh, that giant sal went nocturnal on us and we just kept feeding her bread and feeding her bread and she got so fat like I bet you could see in the pictures she was just getting bigger and bigger like every week and, uh and Luke, he ended up sitting in a stand. He's trying to do it with a bow because you know, his two older brothers did it with a bow, so he's got to be a man and do it too, but he's he's more a man than all of us because that big bear would come in every single night. And you're talking about walking out in the dark and being scared. Well, yeah, he's probably like 12 or 13 and he'd sit that all by himself, right and where my, where my bait was kind of set, I had it's kind of an open little meadow and the the barrel was like eight yards from the tree stand, but then about 60 yards away the meadow kind of necks down and uh, every night Luke would say like, right, when it about get dark, he would see a shadow, come walk and sit right in that opening, right in the middle of that opening and it was 60 yards, so it was like just enough that he.
Speaker 2:He's like I'm pretty sure that's a bear, but it's too dark to really make a good shot with a bow and it's too far. So he's like I don't. I don't dare take that shot. But that giant bear would come and sit there every night and, uh, he would wait until his pitch black. He'd hop out of the tree, stand, walk down, leave and sure enough, like we'd get on our trail camera pictures 10 minutes after he'd walk out of the stand boom that that big bear would be on the barrel it that dude they know it, man, they know it.
Speaker 1:I remember we were hog hunting in Texas, um, and we just get this hog on the cameras about 10 minutes after you left the blind. And then one time they're like all right, we got a thermal, we're gonna stay an hour and a half late, so they stay an hour and a half late and they're like okay, well, I guess the hog's not coming by tonight and so they take off. 10 minutes after they take off, hog shows up. Um, so I think they know right that we're there sometimes.
Speaker 2:I think they know too. He ended up, uh, he ended up going in there with a rifle and uh, and sat up and and it came in like 15 minutes earlier one night than it normally did and he had like a, a clear open shot, boom, smoked that bear and it, yeah awesome, the youngest, youngest brother ended up getting the biggest bear by far, is that?
Speaker 1:the biggest bear that, uh, all the brothers have gotten to date so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's got the biggest bear. I got the biggest. Uh, well, his salad's batter. But on bears, I don't know if you know you, you you score the head okay, and my, my boar just had a bigger head. I actually was a longer bear, the, the bear I shot was longer and had a bigger head. But his bear is a little more plump yeah, and he shot it a little later in the season, so got you coat actually finally came in and uh, yeah, it was just a big fat bear, but they're they're way fun to way, fun to hunt.
Speaker 2:They're yeah, man, I can't wait.
Speaker 1:I get a bear tag every year, but I never seem to see any. I've only seen one, basically, since I started hunting in Colorado. So they're, I guess, few and far between, or maybe I'm just in the wrong spots yeah, we got a ton.
Speaker 2:We got a ton of bears here, for some reason I don't. Uh, yeah, I don't know why, but we just got a lot got a lot of bears huh well, that's awesome, brett.
Speaker 1:Well, what are you got any other stories for us? Uh, you know, I'm like I say everybody I'll listen all day, but if that's it, then we can tell the people to find you yeah you tell me where we're going yeah, I got a, actually I got.
Speaker 2:I got two more. I'll try and make them quick. I got a couple elk stories that are always always just a classic. Um, I guess I'll. I'll go with my, my brother's, elk hunt this year.
Speaker 2:He uh, he's living out of state but he still has his residency here in Idaho and uh, he, he was coming up, we were all going to go elk hunting and he'd never actually hunted elk before and he, he'd kind of hunted everything but hadn't hadn't gone after an elk yet and he flew in, landed and this guy, he's just so lucky. Oh, it's crazy, he's just too. He's too lucky, is what it is. Uh, he lands right, we pick him up at the airport, we bring him, bring him home, and I think it was like finding packed up bags and everything, and it was uh, probably 1, 1, 30 in the morning before he before he uh ended up getting everything packed up and then I think he was out of the door by like 4, 35 o'clock in the morning. So he'd been, he'd been home for what?
Speaker 2:four or five hours at this time uh, huh okay and he's up in the hills hunting already and he was actually going after a mule deer with his bow because he he choked on a buck. Uh, the year before sent an arrow and into the grass thinking that it was gonna. The buck was laying in its bed and when he threw it the buck jumped up and stuck an arrow right in the middle of the bed and bucked it and off. So he's going back to get a little redemption, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:And he goes back in there and he's hunting and all of a sudden it's like I think it's a first or second day of archery elk season and he had both tags. But he was like, well, I'm just going to go after Mule Deer and then all the brothers will go hunting. But we weren't off work yet. He flew in like a day or two early before we could get work off. And then we had like the whole next week booked out to go hunting. And he calls me at like 11 o'clock or something and he's like dude, I got these elk. They're going crazy. What do I do? How do I get in on them? Because I've kind of gotten pretty hard in the archery elk hunting and I'm trying to explain to him what he needs to do and how to get in on this bull and he's walking his way out and he ends up getting this thick musky smell. You know what smell I'm talking about?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, not a smell you'd want to rub your body in, but when?
Speaker 2:you're hunting.
Speaker 1:It's a smell you love and he knew that he knew that elk, you know.
Speaker 2:And he takes that whiff and he goes oh my gosh, dude, they're close. He's like that stinks and he didn't really know how to bugle. He didn't have a bugle too, because he wasn't really going after elk, but he had his elk reed and his binajornis. So he's like, well, I'll try. This throws in a call, throws off one soft cow call, and I mean I'd probably like to think it's pretty bad. Being a brother is probably a horrible call.
Speaker 1:That would be the worst call ever. Called it's in the way it could be.
Speaker 2:When it's your brother and you're too competitive. That's how it is. I mean, good enough, I guess. Because he said this bull just turned, boom, and starts running straight up hill after him. Just turned and goes crazy and runs right in at like 30 yards. He said he made that one call call and then did a second call call, tiny little call call to stop it. Boom, that bull locked up, freaking, smoked it and it had been like I think he said he shot it around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. So he landed, got to bed at 1 o'clock, 12 hours later had a bull down.
Speaker 2:And it went like it went like I don't even know how far, which, yeah, I think it was like 150 yards piled up. Actually, when he stuck it, that bull jumped up rear back and landed flat on its back and a bull took off running downhill and then he said he just heard a crash, boom pile up and yeah, it's just crazy how lucky he is, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I've talked to plenty of hunters on this podcast, obviously, and there are some that are like, yeah, I'm just lucky and I'm like, damn it, man, that is not me.
Speaker 2:Not me at all.
Speaker 1:But you didn't remind me my bull. You probably have heard this already, but, like when I shot it, it ran about 150 yards and your mule deer when it went upside down and its antlers were in the ground. Same thing happened to my bull 150 yards, reared up and then just plop backwards in this weird ball. We were looking for it, we were looking for antlers. We didn't see antlers because they were dug into the ground and he was so twisted that, like I was hunting with Jermaine Hodges, jermaine tried to pull the antlers out and he's like this is going to spear me because it's going to like spring out of the ground because of the way his body was twisted. So we had to like two person lift the head and so like I could stop it from spearing someone else. It's crazy how these animals die. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It is pretty crazy. I mean, the worst part about that whole story is he's up there and it's like one o'clock, you know, and he calls us and he's like, hey, I got a bull down. And you know, when anybody ever kills an elk, it's just like all hands on deck to get it out, to get the meat out. And we're all trying to call and get off work and he's like, oh well, do I come out, do I stay up here? And I'm like I'll be up there an hour and a half, two hours. You know it's a good hike up there.
Speaker 2:I'm leaving work right now. Well, come to find out. I got to finish up a project, try to work on some stuff. Don't get it done. I call my other brothers and some buddies and I'm like, hey, spence has got a bull down. We got to get going and we're all trying to get everything together. And I didn't really realize it, but it was like 5.30 before we actually got up there to him. So he ended up spending all day sitting on the mountain by himself just looking at the bull, because I was like, well, don't cut it up, because I want to get some good pictures because he is by himself.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't start butchering it. We got to get some good pictures of it and he just sat up there for all day, but we ended up getting that bull out and it was good. It was a great experience, you know.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, did he have you guys scored that bull? How big was that guy?
Speaker 2:That guy. He wasn't actually too crazy, he's probably 280 270, 280. Cool. Yeah, it's like nothing too crazy, but for like your first archery bull, I mean yeah, it's an everyday shooter.
Speaker 1:You know man I don't know if I hunted and I just showed up and 12 hours later killed something. If it would have the same allure to me, something about the suck I enjoy, and I'm not sure if I would love it as much. I've got hundreds of miles on my boots before I killed an elk.
Speaker 1:Like we're talking out of all the seasons. I've done 600, 700 miles before I finally got one down, so I don't know if I'd stick to it, if I was like, oh, that was easy, alright, get out of here now.
Speaker 2:That's how I am. I'll tell you a quick story about last year. I ended up getting in on a bull man. It was just an awesome bull. It was probably one of the coolest elk experiences that I've ever had. Have you been in on bulls before? Like, get right in on them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I shot my bull this year at 37 yards and at one point I don't know if you've listened to the Hunt Recap episode, it's like a bonus episode we did, but at one point Jermaine Hodges called in three bulls all the within five yards.
Speaker 2:At the same time, it was absolutely insane.
Speaker 1:He's like shoot that one. I'm like I can't. There's one behind you.
Speaker 2:I was like I can't move.
Speaker 1:We ended up spooking them all. They ran off. And then I run down and grabbed my backpack because we're going to get on the move. And another one shows up. And then that one spooks and I can't shoot that one because it's vitals were just behind a tree the whole time and that one spooks and then I go back to my backpack again and I see a fifth one, so like five bowls within a five minute, maybe even three minute timeframe. It's hard to tell what time time is different when that kind of shit's going on, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you what. That's a good problem to have, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was true. So we've been hunting for two days before with Pat LaTrell, who's also a world out calling champ, and we've been struggling. We've been getting on elk but like not really having any opportunities, and that's the first morning Jermaine's there and the first time we go out and start calling, just like everything shows up and Jermaine's like you want to win. You put Hajin man. Pat was like God damn it, you bastard. It was so funny. It was so funny, but it was the craziest experience I've ever had in the elk woods. It was awesome.
Speaker 2:Man, I love that. That's kind of how kind of what I ended up having happened. Yeah, just too many elk, which is not the worst problem to have in the world. But I ended up getting in on a nice bowl one day and I mean, you know what Elk living the nastiest, steepest, thickest crap you could ever think of, and it just sucks. And I ended up getting in on this nice bowl. It was probably about 330, 340. I mean just a dandy, dandy bowl and I got right in there.
Speaker 2:I'm like 25 yards from him and all I can see is just his white tips, because the underbrow was just so thick. And then, as soon as I saw his tips, I saw his head kind of go up and I'm like, oh, he's smelling and the wind swirl. Boom, he busted and was gone. You know, like that. Yeah Well, I went back in there like two, three days later with my older brother, nathan, and this is like one of the coolest, most beautiful things I've ever seen, coolest Elk experiences I've ever had.
Speaker 2:Right, we were going up and right. When we get over, we get over the crest, over into that nasty, thick crap, and as soon as we get in there, boom, I hear him screaming and I just take off running as fast as I can and trying to close that distance and we get in there, get in there pretty close, because I kind of knew where they would be. We get right up there and before I know it, me and Nathan, we both stopped, we freeze and it's like we have a spike right there. I mean 30 yards from us, and he just didn't care a bit in the world and just walked right by us on like this little game trail and walked down and we're like dude, we're in, this is, this is what we've been waiting for.
Speaker 2:And I, because I already knew what bowl I was going after. There was actually two nice bowls in there and I knew. I knew what I was going after, right, so I'm not shooting a spike right now, I'm going after this big bowl and we can hear him just screaming their head off up above us and we let that, let that spike go by and we sneak past and we get it on that game trail that they, that they were working on and we set up and they had, like this little opening in this bowl. I mean, he was the I don't know if you call him a satellite bowl, because he was running, was running his own herd, but there was kind of two, two herds right on the same area and these two bowls were fighting, fighting over the cows hard, but they'd kind of divided into two groups and I could hear the top bowl. You know how you can just tell it's a big bowl, a bigger bowl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a dinosaur or something. You're like that, ain't right.
Speaker 2:That deep nasty and it's just like dude. I'm looking at this bowl in front of me. You're a dandy bowl, but when I hear that bugle up above you, I know that that guy's bigger than you are.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I listen to your bugle and I hear his and it's just like I know that that top bowl is giant. But I'm like the bowl I'm looking at right now is like I don't even know three, 20 ish. Three, three, 10, three, 20, which is, I mean, 100% shooter bowl bowl with a bowl For sure, for sure. And we set up and we're trying to trying to work him and he kind of knows we're there but he didn't know what we are, so he didn't know if we're the cows or not. But he didn't want to pick up more cows. We're trying to cow call, trying to rake, trying to rip grass, trying to trying to do whatever we can to get him to come in, and he ends up we kind of push him, don't really have a shot. He's like 40 yards working cows, 45 yards, and that's just like a little further than I care to take a shot, especially if they're I mean, if he was wide open, 40 yards broadside, didn't know we were there and wasn't already a little spooked. I'm like, yeah, I feel good there, but if they're a little bit spooked, I'm like I try and get you know 20, 25 yards or less, and we end up pushing this bowl and we kind of push him through the clearing. He goes back into that, into that nasty, thick crap and I'm like, dude, we're still going to go. I'm like we're not done yet.
Speaker 2:Nate, he didn't know. He didn't know what we are, he just knows he doesn't want us, you know. So I have my brother dropped downhill from me. I'm like you get lower. I'm running up to get on this bull. So I'm like sneaking in the best I can to try and get in on this guy watching everywhere I can to try and find cows, cause I didn't know how far he. He bumped out. I just knew he bumped far enough. I couldn't see him. I couldn't see him.
Speaker 2:So I'm still pursuing him and I guess he could feel my pressure. And that bull up above me, that that far bull, that giant bull, he was working his way down and I could tell that the bull that I had in front of me didn't want to, didn't really want to fight right then, and I ended up pushing those two bulls together and I didn't know it and all I hear is just horns locking up.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Like like 150 yards ahead of me and at this time I don't know where my brother is. He's cow calling, screaming down lower, trying to trying to set something up for me, or like 40, 50 yards apart, kind of working parallel on the hillside. But I ended up losing him and I take off running up up this hill and I stop and I can hear him walking up and I couldn't see him. But there was like three big pine trees right, right in front of me and it was so loud I'm like you're 20 yards on the other side of those pine trees and I'm like I know you're right there because you can just hear it, you know. And I looked off to my left and I'm like I got an opening to my left. I look off to my right and I'm like I got an opening to my right and I can hear these bulls fighting right behind me. Like the only way that I don't get a shot at one of these bulls is if they both go perfectly straight uphill. Like that's the only circumstance that I won't be able to get a shot off on one of these guys. And so I'm just waiting.
Speaker 2:I'm arrow knocked up, I'm waiting for one of them to get pushed off the fight either left or right, and I'm just holding up. I can still hear him fighting. I'm listening to it for like three, four minutes and all of a sudden that bull that I had been going after earlier, that nice, that nice bull, that three, three 20-ish bull, yeah, he ended up getting pushed straight through the pine trees, not around, he went straight through them because the other bulls fighting them so hard, poking him in the butt, he did pops right, pops right through the trees and I'm like, oh crap, I wasn't expecting that. So I draw back as quick as I could and he's just high head kind of trotting around. And then he sees me full draw with my bow and he looks at me and just drops his head and starts coming at me.
Speaker 1:And I oh God.
Speaker 2:I panic and I'm in my head. I'm like, dude, you just barely got off of a fight and I'm looking like I don't know what. You know another bull, maybe to him or something. I'm like I got my bow up there so I just throw an arrow as fast as I can and jump off to the side, thinking I'm going to get trampled.
Speaker 2:And it's sticking in like four or five yards and I I stuck my neck and uh dude, this was the first year I've ever tried hunting with expandables and I had the mega meats. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh Opened this bull up like I had never seen a bull bleed before.
Speaker 2:It was just gushing blood and uh, I ended up calling a buddy that's like a way better outcome than I am and I told him the situation and he's like dude, run it. I guess I guess like back in the old days you used to be able to just run a bull and they uh keeps their heart pumping because if they'll lay down, elko will tend to clog up, is kind of what he was saying. So he was like just run it, keep that bull kind of moving and it'll bleed out. Uh, and I'm like, well, I don't know exactly what I'm doing, I'll take your word. And we ended up tracking that bull for like a mile it was. I I tracked him on X, it was over and then just completely dried up and I'm like, dude, I went back looking for crows. Never found crows, never, never found him at all. But I'm like all I could ever think of.
Speaker 2:I might have hit him too far to the left, you know, didn't, didn't catch jugular, didn't catch anything. But I'm like, oh, that still kills me, still to this day. So I know you said you hit in the neck.
Speaker 1:Uh, can you be a little bit more descriptive? So it's coming right at you. You kind of dive to the side, so you like kind of yeah, I like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I took a step to the side. And when I took a step he kind of raised his head back up and I think I went right by his mouth and cause his head was kind of further down, I went like right by his mouth into the side of his neck. Ideally I would have put it right. I thought I was holding center like right in that sweet apple, that head on sweet apple spot. That's where I was trying to go for it. But when I jumped to the side, I think I pulled my bow to the side with me and I hit a little too far to the left and I don't even know exactly what I hit. But I saw my arrow when he took off, saw my arrow was in there, good. And then when I saw the blood I was like for sure I got a bull down, you know. But yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know some wolves or something, probably had a pretty good meal that day, because, yeah, it sounds like you got him down. It's just, it's crazy that they made it over a mile bleeding like that. Yeah Well, I don't, I don't know, man.
Speaker 2:Elkers tough. They are tough, tough animals. This, uh, this bull my brother shot this last year. We ended up finding two broad heads in him. We found no way beyond the one your brother shot, so he got hit three times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, freaking made it to two.
Speaker 2:My, my cousin. How that pissed me off. That's a whole nother story. And I'm getting in my my cousin in on a 350 bull that he ended up shooting his rifle and yeah, it just pissed me off and it doesn't. I'm happy for him, you know, but uh, I'm happy for him. But uh should have been me. It should have been me.
Speaker 1:I was in there for a deer hunt.
Speaker 2:I'm in there for a deer hunt. He ends up shooting the biggest elk of his life. But uh that's amazing. That bull too. We ended up finding two broad heads in that bull too, so that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Sounds like Idaho needs to get some better archers man, yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2:No kidding, I don't know if I'm lucky or not, but yeah those critters are so tough.
Speaker 1:My first elk that I ever was a part of harvesting, um, my brother-in-law shot it with a 50 caliber muzzle loader at like he says, five to 10 yards, just liquefied its heart Like lung heart, lung chest, boom, um. I then shot that same elk Um, you've probably heard that story, uh, but I shoot it at like 60 yards lung spine and it was still on its feet for another like 40 minutes. So I was like I'm not going to. I in retrospect, now that I know what I know, I should have loaded another round of my gun. In fact I did have another round of my gun, I just didn't shoot at it again and I should have.
Speaker 1:Uh, but it just stood there. Stood there, bled out and then laid down and fell asleep, so I didn't chase it, I actually watched it, watched it expire from about you know 80 yards. But the fact that it was shot twice by two 50 caliber sabbots and it still was alive for another 40 minutes is insane.
Speaker 2:So my first elk, I I double lunged a smaller agahorn at like four yards, perfect behind the shoulder, Absolutely smoked him. And again, yeah, he just stood there. He stood there for like 30 minutes and I ended up. I couldn't shoot that far. He stopped at like 70 yards and I had a buddy that was with me and I was like, dude, we need to get this bull home, just send another arrow. And he ended up hitting that bull in the shoulder, snapped its shoulder blade and the bull took off and getting his heart pumping again. He ended up dying. But yeah, again, like he stood there for way longer than I thought you would stand in, like I could see the blood dripping behind his shoulder and I'm like I had a perfect shot. I'm like why is he not dropping? And he just stood, yeah, he just stood.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and then you got bulls like that just die immediately too, it's who knows, man, who knows? My bull dead in under a minute is our guess, because it did run and then flip upside down, which? Means it you know, it did only made it 100 yards, 150 yards. So who knows, man, who knows?
Speaker 2:Elkhunt man.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:But man, it's sometimes the most frustrating thing in the world when you put in so much work and you get right down to that shot and then it's just something so small, about like two inches to the wrong side. You know, two inches higher, two inches lower. You would have completely changed it, and I mean, from all the broadheads I found in Elkhunt, I mean that's a story of a lot of hunters, I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess, man, I mean I haven't killed enough to find a bunch of broadheads, but that's too bad. But yeah man. This was fun. You had a lot of crazy stories, man, for being only 24, you've definitely been through it, which is cool. Now I'm going to give you some homework, which is to get your old time buddy on here so we can hear some of his crazy stories I'll send you guys a six pack or something and we'll get them a little looked at up. Maybe that'll make them interested?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll talk with you, but man, yeah, please do please do.
Speaker 1:But, brett, I know you said you had a couple more stories. I think that wraps it up. Why don't we tell the people where they can find you, if you have any interested in that. If not, man, we'll just hang it up.
Speaker 2:So my brother actually ended up starting an Instagram page. It's pretty, pretty new start, but it's Thompson Brothers or Thompson underscore outdoors, but Thompson with two ends.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, and I'll put that in the show notes so everyone could find them there. Brett man, this was fun. I appreciate you. One reaching down the first place, Two, reaching back out to me again months later being like come on, jerk, when are we doing this thing? So it was great to hear your stories, man. I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, I enjoyed being on.
Speaker 1:Cool, man, cool. Thank you. All right, guys. That's it. Another couple of stories in the books. Again, I want to thank Brett, of course, for jumping on the podcast. Please check out the show notes and give him a follow. While you're there, follow us on Instagram and go ahead and, whatever you're listening to us on, give us a review, send the podcast to a friend. We're growing, but let's grow a little bit more with word of mouth so we can get more hunters reaching out saying I got crazy stories to tell. But that's it, guys. Thank you again. Sorry about my cold. Now get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.